Gung Hay Fat Choy!

We all had fun at the Chinese New Year Celebration. My niece had a wonderful time wearing her red silk finery, dancing, running around like crazy and making new friends!

K making the ribbon stick craft.
Oooh! I get to dance with it??!!!
YEAH!! This is cool!!
K's favorite word of the night...."DRAGON"!!!

Chinese New Year

I got this cute sticker (cafepress.com/adoptimage) thinking that Ellie might be born in the Year of the Dog. Of course she could be a rooster...have to wait til the referral comes to know for sure. Sigh...
If you want to know more about the Chinese Zodiac check out the S.F. Chinese Cultural Center website.
My niece K, sister-in-law D and I will be attending the "Hampton Roads Families with Children from China" CNY Celebration tomorrow. I'll be sure to post pictures!

100 Wishes Quilt

“To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite friends and family to contribute a patch of cloth with a wish for the baby. Part of the patch of cloth goes into the quilt for the baby, and the other part of the cloth can go into a creative memory notebook with the wish for the child. The quilt contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.” (www.originalquilts.com)

As many of you know, my mom is quite the quilter and she promised that she would help me make a 100 Wishes Quilt for Elena. (Amazingly so, as I’ve only made one quilt top in my life and she nearly disowned me after that experience!) Anyway, I’m on a quest for squares and wishes for Elena! If you would like to send one our way please email me.

I’m really excited about this project and hope to show you all the finished product before her 18th birthday! =)

Such Talent!

Still waiting for news of being DTC or even receiving my brown envelope (more on that later). So in the meantime I thought I'd brag about my niece and her photography skills. She got hold of a disposable camera on Christmas Eve and took pretty much the whole roll of film! Of course, it was so fun and Papa,Giggy and I kind of encouraged her!
This is one of her...ahem...more discernable shots! The "off-centeredness" of the shot certainly says something about the subjects, don't you think!?!

Dossiers in waiting.

So this is where I want my dossier to end up sometime this week. (No, that was not a question!!) These pictures are from www.angelcovers.org/ccaaset1.shtml and they hope to portray the "magic" (i.e., craziness) of this whole process. There were other pictures available, but I think you start to get the idea! Honestly, it is wonderful that so many people want to expand their families through adoption. If huge numbers of waiting dossiers is the reason for these excruciatingly slow referrals then ok...(that and *my* daughter isn't ready for me yet!) but maybe they should hire a few more matching people? Just a suggestion! =)

Chinese New Year Preparations

The Chinese New Year is fast approaching and Bernie and Gracie are VERY busy getting prepared for the festivities. They are both thrilled that this year is going to be the "Year of the Dog"! Finally some respect and maybe some more Chew-eez treats! Oh, yeah!!

PPD??

So my dossier has been sent to my agency to be translated. What acronym is that?? DTAFT??! I found out that the agency sends dossiers in batches so will that mean I am a February DTCer? I am so confused. They supposedly will send me a letter about two weeks into February to notify me that China received my papers. Is that LID?? Seriously!! The agony of waiting with no way to track anything has begun. All that paperwork, letters of intent, guardianship, police cert of good conduct (!), birth certificate, security approval, bank and financial statements, employment, affadivit of single status and non-homosexuality (good grief), medical exam certs, applications, passport, passport and extra pictures of home and family, not to mention the elaborate home study report all notorized, verified, certified, authenticated ...it's gone. I've been told to focus on the end result...Ellie! But as for patience, as my friends and family know well, I have none! In college, my mom would send me care packages and I would already have gone though the whole box before I was even halfway back to my room. Mom would even send my birthday packages to my friends to keep for me til the actual day. I'm rambling...I'm frustrated. Is this the start of post- paperwork depression?! =)

Mail Call!!

My authenticated documents will be here in the morning!! I hate to admit how often I have checked that online fedex tracker over the past few days!! =) Anyway, Condoleezza and some fine Chinese person has signed everything and the docs are ready to go! I already made an appointment with my agency so that I can rush everything over the minute the fedex guy arrives. My next move: rubberband the entire pile of documents, say a little prayer and fedex it to NY where it is translated and sent to China. So no, I won't be DTC *quite* yet, but likely sometime in the midst of the Chinese New Year celebration week I should be! You can bet I'm already planning that blog!!

Last of the Authentications

The last documents to receive the "Great Gold Seal of Virginia" arrived today from Richmond! I immediately Fedexed them to a courier who will take the docs to the US State Dept and then to the Chinese Embassy in D.C. These are the last steps towards getting my dossier to the place to be translated and then sent to China. Got all that?! I have been collecting paperwork and tracking documents on the USPS and Fedex tracking systems (many, many times a day I confess!) since the beginning of September. Whatever will I do with all the free time I'll have after I'm DTC?!!
My sister-in-law and I have signed up to run in the Shamrock 8K so I can still focus on something other than work! =) I ran a half-marathon way back on Labor Day weekend so you'd think I'd be able to do an 8K right?! Sitting at the computer and tracking document travel is so much easier!!
DTC in January, LID in February, 8K in March. Gotta count down the days to Elena somehow!

Ellie for Short

My friend Rachel asked me about Elena's name. Basically I chose her first name because I liked it! After working in the schools it is difficult to find a name because most of them already come with a face and a story! I've always liked "different" names and since working at my current school, I've come to realize that the names I thought were "different" pale in comparison to those of some of my students!
One of Elena's middle names will be Jacquelyn, after Elena's best "Giggy" ever!! My mom means the world to me and I am very thankful to her for eliminating every hurdle during this adoption process. I am thrilled that she will lend my daughter her name.
I'm not usually keen on multiple names...there are never enough bubbles on scantrons for one long name! However, Elena's other middle name will likely be her Chinese name. It is likely that she did not arrive at the orphanage (Social Welfare Institute) with a name or any other information so the orphanage will have given her a name. There is debate within the adoption community over giving your child a name to "blend" in versus keeping the only real connection she comes with....so I figure I'll keep her Chinese name along with all the others. She'll have "links" to both worlds. So her name until we are "matched" is Elena Jacquelyn Chinese Name!!