How do you know?

So other than filling out the visa forms, I am finished with the paper work for this part of the journey. What does that mean you might ask? Well that means that the I-800A, Supplement 3 paper work has been completed. This includes the updated home study that indicates that Fred has changed jobs and we are notifying the USCIS to let them know. Then there was the I-800 which is also to the USCIS that tells the US gov’t that this is the girl that is going to become our daughter. But this is the question that people ask, “How did you know it was to be this girl?”

Before we were matched, I wondered the same thing. I asked folks how they knew and I always got the same response, “You just do”.  I have heard people say that there are 2 major turning points in the adoption process, when you get the match and when you get your child. These are the moments when you can first put a face to the love you have already started to develop for this child that will become part of your family (being matched) and then on what is called “Gotcha Day”, when you meet your child for the first time. The real thing, what they sound like and feel like and what they think, likes, dislikes, who they are. Well we are not there yet, so I can’t talk about that step YET, but when we get there I will, but I can talk about this mysterious “You just know” concept. If you don’t know, before we were matched we decided that it was getting very difficult to continue talking about this girl we were adopting without giving her a name. We didn’t feel that we could really name here before we at least knew something about her, but we needed to call her something because it was awkward calling her “the girl” or “the daughter” or “the sister”. So Quade decided that we should call her Scottie. He wanted Bob at first, but that name has already been taken by a little boy we know. Anyway everyone agreed and we started calling this faceless child we already loved Scottie. So anyway, for me at least, the longer we were in process and closer to getting our dossier finished, the more desperate I became to put a face with our daughter. I looked at every listing of children I could find, even if it was with a different agency. I joined advocacy  forums, anything and everything I could find because I knew our daughter, our Scottie, was out there and I needed to find her and strangely enough I knew in my heart when I did find her I would know. So I looked and I looked and I asked for files and every time it just wasn’t her. All those other girls were someone else’s daughter and I hoped they would find them soon. I was always checking my email just in case there was a message letting me know that someone (our agency) thought they had found her. Until December 2^nd in the middle of math class, all the big events happen in the middle of math class, but that is another story. I got an email from our agency, there were also several from Fred asking why I was not answering my phone or his texts and why I was not paying attention because we had a potential match. Moments after reading that we had an email, Fred walked in, because he could not wait any longer for me to pay attention. We stood at my computer, opened the email, and yes, just like everyone had said, we just knew. I have to admit Fred had already looked and he already knew. It did not take me but a moment to catch up, that was our daughter in those pictures and she was found. Those are the moments of faith, that no matter what the special needs, she was the one. So to wrap this up, knowing when your match is right is just like the Thermos, it keeps the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold. “How do it know? It just does.”

When you get an LOA for your birthday

Just a sample of how much paper work we (Danya) have generated.

Dayna's Birthday present an LOA

I have started several posts, as of late, but have not finished any of them. 

I had the post about how I have learned about trust and faith and having to wait and wait and wait.  i know the people taking care of Na Hui have been doing so for the last 6 years and I am sure they have been doing a fine job.  But now we are waiting for travel and it just starts to seem like they may not be doing as good of a job now.  I now it sounds goofy, but you really do start to think some strange things when you wait.  I need to read "Oh the places you'll go" again.

There was the post about bureaucracy being bureaucracy, no matter what country or what language is being spoken.  This would have to do with our experience's with the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco.  Most of them good and several just made us scratch our heads.   (Don't even get us started on passports for Canada.)

The post about the hormonal changes that take place in adoption, it may be even worse than the changes that take place with the biological mother.  I wont give Dayna too much grief over this and she is getting better here in the 4th Trimester.  Heck I have even been nesting.  We were at Fred Meyers and I saw the cutest little dress with the most precious pattern and the bodice was just darling.  I had to to have it, not for myself, for Na Hui.    

So I should get to this posts actual point.  On Monday the 20th when we were at Walmart looking for a carry-on for me to take to China we revived the call we have been waiting for.  We received our LOA from China.  ( Note LOA is our approval from China to adopt)  The average from the pool of people we sampled for LOA's was 66 days.  We made it in 62 days. 

So here we are on Wednesday night with our Fed-X package from Holt with the actual LOA from China and a pile of papers to be filled out, signed, notarized, copied and mailed back to Holt. 

We  had to do an updated home study after I quit my job and we are waiting for it to come back.  We should have it by the first of next week.  When we receive this we will send it off to the USCIS (United states citizen's and immigration service) with our I-800.  This is the official document allowing Na Hui to become a US citizen.  

In the mean time we are getting our Visa Applications in order.  Aunt Mary is coming with us to China and she is getting her hands soiled by the reams of paper work now as well. 

So. keep checking back each week my friends your sure to get a smile from seven stranded castaways here on Gilligan's Isle.