Light at the end of the tunnel........

Hi,

There's not a lot of new news to report on our adoption journey. We are happily getting things done and crossing them off our "to do" list. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of this crazy paperchase.

In other news, Lily is becoming more excited about her new baby brother. Well actually, she refers to Andrew as "my baby." So we hear a lot of things like "When my baby comes home, I'm going to feed him a bottle." , "When my baby comes home, I'm going to give him some toys." Just when we thought she was the sweetest, big sister ever, Lily gave us something to think about. She informed Bill "If Andrew cries all night, you're going to have to shut his door so I can sleep." So much for taking care of "my baby." :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to Everyone. May the Year of the Rat bring you good health and prosperity!

Ok, Chinese New Year was techincally on the 7th. Our local chapter of Families with Children from China hosted their New Year's Celebration. Our whole family attended and had a great time. It's always so fun to see all the children interact and have a good time. My favorite part is seeing all the families formed through adoption. Of course the little ones in their silks and squeaky shoes are beyond adorable. Seeing the parents, grand parents, younger and older siblings coming together for the celebration is also very special.

We also had a major Proud Parent experience at the party. Lilianna particpates in a kids culture and program on Saturdays. The 4 year old class did a "dance" on stage. Last year, Lily was extremely hesitant to go on stage. She cried and clung to me. This year, the show was on a much larger stage *and* parents couldn't accompany the children. We weren't sure if Lily would actually participate. Two days before the performance, she started voicing concerns about going on stage. We assured her that it's be fine, but Lily remained skeptical. So our hearts soared when her class lined up to go on stage and Lily willing went! No tears, no fears and no drama. She just went and did a great job! Now, she didn't look relaxed on stage, but this was a major accomplishment and we were just thrilled. It's so wonderful to see your child take a big step and conquer a fear!

Update from Taiwan

Happy Valentine's Day


As I was getting ready for work today, I thought "Gee, it'd be nice if we got new pictures of Andrew today. It'd be the perfect Valentine's Day gift." Then for some reason, I checked our email on my lunch break today. Well, to my surprise we had an email from our case manager and it contained new pictures! It was definately the perfect gift for all of us. We all love how he has such an expressive face and so much hair. Andrew is much like his sister by having an impressive amount of hair for a baby. We also love watching his video. He still gives the camera a very skeptical look and does a great job tracking the sounds. We also love how right at the end of the video it looks like he is waving to us. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Enjoy the pictures of our little guy!

Take care,
Bill, Melissa and Lily

Update!

Well, I'm happy to report all the drama and stress from this last part of the paperchase paid off! The final form was received and ok'd by our homestudy agency and everything is good to go. Our caseworker from CW says we are right on schedule and we can start working on the other things on our "to-do" list.

Paper Pregnancy Blues........

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure every pregnancy, physical or paper, has it's ups and downs. Our journey to Andrew is no different. Since receiving our referral, 3 weeks ago, we've been doing our paperchase at an incredibly intense speed. From the glass half full perspective, we've been able to get a lot done quickly. Many people and agencies have responded quickly and expedited procedures for us. We are very gratefull for that.

From the glass half empty perspective, we had a rough 48 hours. It started on Friday when we realized the person who was going to complete our very last document was on vacation for 2-3 weeks. Of course, you can't blame someone for wanting to go somewhere sunny and warm in February. It was just hard for us to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but not quite be able to get it all done. We checked into other resources and were quoted 8 and 12 week waits. Not the news we wanted to hear.

Saturday morning, I was lounging around the house while Bill and Lily were at Chinese school. I talked to my friend Lynn. After a few more phone calls, we would realize that we could possibly get this last document done after all! Our friend on vacation was willing to accept a fax at his hotel, fill out the form and fax it back!!! The only challenge was the fact that he was about to board a cruise ship and I had about 15 minutes to get it all done.

Flying around the house, I threw on some clothes and went out without my make-up and hair being done. For all of those who know me well, you know that I rarely ever do that. I dash off to the closest Kinkos copy center. I was so nervous that I made a wrong turn and cost myself some time. By the time I got to the store, I was feeling all panicky and had adrenaline rushing through my system. Bill met me at the store and we frantically filled out the cover sheet, got the return fax number and sent the fax. After receiving confirmation that our friend got the fax, was filling out the form and faxing it back, a victorious feeling came over me. Sure it had been a crazy half hour. Without a doubt, I looked like a disaster in the middle of Kinkos on a Saturday morning. But what did all that matter? I was getting the last paper chasing step done to get my baby home!

Unfortunately that victorious feeling was short lived. While waiting for the return fax, a Kinko's employee approaches me and asks "Um, Ma'am are you waiting for a fax?" I answered "Yes" and couldn't believe my ears when she says "Yeah, we're out of toner and you can't read the fax." Incredulously I ask "Can't you get more toner?!!" "Uh, we don't have any and it's gonna take a few days to order some." was her reply. I was beside myself. I'm standing in a room with about 12 copying machinces, 6 fax machines and various printers and they are out of toner! I also know from experience that copiers and fax machines indicate toner is low for multiple copies before it gets this bad. I firmly believe the employees are incompetent for directing us to the one machine that wasn't functioning in the whole store. To make matters worse, the employees delete the information so that we can't transfer the fax to another machine to print. All they can suggest is that we drive to a store about 20 minutes away and have our friend resend the fax. Of course, by now our friend has boarded a shuttle and is headed for a Disney cruise. He was kind enough to take a half hour of his day on vacation and help us immensely. We sure didn't want to pester him again. We were at a complete loss.

My husband was great at thinking on his feet and got the phone number of the hotel. He asked them to resend the fax to his parent's office. We frantically place the call, get their fax number and make several phone calls confirming the necessary document is received. Ultimately, we received the document yesterday and are sending it all out ot our agency on Monday. I am completely touched at the number of people (friends, family and strangers.......just not Kinko employees) who have helped us get so much done so quickly. Without their help, Andrew would have to spend a much longer time waiting for us. It's also easy to stay motivated during all this crazy work by looking at his little pictures and videos. All that said, Bill and I can't wait to be done with this paperchase.

Take care,
Bill, Meliss and Lily

Introduction

We are very excited to share the news of our referral. On January 18th, 2008 at 11:40 a.m., we received the news that we have a son! Liu Chih-Han was born on January 3rd, 2008. He was 5 pounds, 14 and 1/2 ounces and 18.9 inches. Our beautiful, new baby boy is currently living in Taiwan Women's and Children Association nursery in Taichung, Taiwan.

We are working very hard to finish the paperwork for our dossier. Fortunately, it's so much easier than the dossier for China. Once our paperwork is done and logged into the courts, we will wait for 3 hearings. After the third and final hearing, we will be granted permission to travel to Taiwan and bring Andrew home! It's very hard to predict how fast this process will go because each judge in Taiwan goes at their own pace. We can only hope for a speedy judge and anticipate that Andrew will be home sometime this summer!