What a day!

Wow - what a day it has been already, and it's not even 10:00am! We got the wonderful news of our new cousin Maddie's arrival this morning at 4:02a.m. Congratulations to Mark and Jen! We can't wait to meet Maddie!

We also received a wonderful gift at our house this morning -new pictures of our little Audrey Ye Fang Ying! She looks like such a big girl in these pictures, and I would really just like to go to China today. We also received updated growth information, and she now has 10 teeth! So, without further ado.....

Thumbs up!

I met with Audrey's pediatrician this afternoon to go over her medical report. We plotted Audrey's measurements (height, weight, head circumference) on growth curves from birth to the most current info that we have, which was June, and the doctor was very pleased with the results. From looking at her pictures, she said she is standing well, using her hands well, and said she had a nice gleam in her eye. :) She reviewed the bloodwork info that we have, as well as immunizations. We talked about the protocol of additional bloodwork and immunizations that will occur when we return from China - that probably won't be Audrey's favorite day ever! I felt great about hearing what the doctor had to say, and we continue to pray for Audrey's health and safety while we wait.

Audrey's Care Package

We ordered a care package for Audrey last week, and got confirmation today that it is on its way to her. :) In the picture, you can see a letter that we wrote to her, which has been translated, a Hello Kitty toy, candy for the nannies, pajamas for Audrey, pajamas for 6 other babies at the orphanage, a blanket for her, a return envelope to us (we asked questions about her and were told they might possibly respond via mail), a disposable camera, and a soft photo album for Audrey, with 6 family pictures in it. The camera is for the nannies to take pictures of Audrey in the orphanage, and then hopefully bring the camera with them on the day we meet. We don't know if this will happen or not, but we certainly thought it was worth a try! :) We also don't know whether or not any of the other items will be with Audrey when we meet. Some people have had the experience that they are, some have not. We have no expectations at all, but certainly wanted Audrey to know that she is loved and we are counting the days until she is in our arms!

Speaking of counting the days, we may be counting a bit longer than I originally thought. :( I got an email from our agency's China coordinator today, which said that our travel group's paperwork was sent back to China yesterday. Yesterday?? In my mind, I kind of assumed that everyone sent their stuff back lickety-split, and that everything could have been sent off by October 16th or so. Maybe everyone did, because I certainly have no idea what all is involved in getting paperwork prepared on this end for 4 families, but I was so hopeful it would have been sent back that first week. So - I guess we will start over with our 4-week countdown to travel approval. I would guess this puts our departure in December, for sure, but we will just have to wait and see.

The little bumps in the road like this are excellent reminders to me that I am not in charge of this process, nor will I ever be. God knows what is best for our family, and my job is to trust in Him and His timing. That is so challenging for me, because I worry about every detail possible, even when I know in my head that things would be so much smoother if I just turned all those worries over to Him. I'm working on it.

So - today I will celebrate the care package going to Audrey and the fact that all of her clothes (Thank you, Jeff, Pam, and Ella!) are clean and in her closet and dresser. Ian asked me today, as I was folding a basket of Audrey's clothes, "What's with all the pink??" He has a lot to learn about having a baby sister! :)

Antsy

As we continue to move through our preparations to go to China and meet our sweet Audrey, I find myself feeling antsier (is that a word?) by the day. We are nowhere near ready to go, but I really don't want to wait any longer to meet her! I have looked at our 3 pictures of her over and over, and know them so well, so now I am ready to move on to the real deal. I do hope our paperwork is moving quickly! And I also wonder if we'll depart in November or December?

I also feel like we are making pretty good progress on the nearly impossible large job of preparing to pack for 5 people (that's us - a family of 5! :) ) for 2 weeks of international travel. The weather should be pretty nice - I think Hong Kong, Nanning, and Guangzhou are close to the same latitude as south Florida. That should help with being able to pack lightly - we won't need heavy winter things. I spent one day this week shopping for baby meds, diapers, wipes, and trip things for her. Another day, Theresa and I spent looking at more meds, toys, and other fun things for her. Little baby things are just so cute - that was a very fun afternoon! :) I would say one highlight of the week for me was finding the little orange toy that she is holding in her referral pictures. It is a monkey with little rings on the bottom, and she is holding on to the monkey's tail. There it was at Target! I have no idea if that is a toy that she plays with on a regular basis, or if it is just brought out for picture-taking, but she has one waiting for her now.
:)

Our 3 kids! :)

I can't wait until she is sitting on their lap, instead of standing in a picture! :)

That was a breeze!

We headed to Indy today to get fingerprinted at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office there. When we did this a little over a year ago, we had a challenging day of heavy rain, bad traffic and a long wait in the office. Today could not have been easier - nice weather, no traffic at the Motor Speedway, and we were the only people in the office! Yay for that!

I have a pretty free week this week, so the list-making and supply shopping will start in earnest. I have lots of things on lists in my head, but I need to get them down on paper, and start talking to doctors about prescriptions for Ian and the rest of us.

I find myself thinking about Audrey many, many moments during each day. Like right now - it is 8:30pm here, so she is starting her day in Xing Ye. I wonder how she slept, has she had breakfast yet, and things like that. I can't wait to share our days together, and then I will know all those answers! :)

Re-introducing...

.... Audrey Anne Fangying Allender!

I really just wanted an excuse to put this picture back at the top of the blog, but I thought you might like to know her new name, too! :)

More on what we know

First of all, thank you all so very much for your warm wishes, emails, comments, everything! We are just thrilled to be where we are in this process, and feel so privileged to be the parents of this little girl. I have no idea why God saw fit to bless our lives with this amazing gift, but we are truly grateful and so excited to meet her!

We have been busy, busy, busy since Monday, and have learned a few things. We have learned that Ye Fang Ying's name is not pronounced 'Yee Fang Ying,' as we were saying, but closer to 'Yeh Fahng Yung.' I found a website that has pronunciations, after searching through a list of the symbols for her name, and I listened about a dozen times to each part of her name. I'll never get the inflection right! Her name means 'fragrant welcoming leaves.' We also learned that her SWI (Social Welfare Institute, or orphanage) is in the city of Xing Ye in Guangxi province. Xing Ye is about 100 miles to the east of Nanning, which is the capital of the province, and the town in which we will be staying.

We don't know any travel information, and won't know for about a month. Our guides in Hong Kong have to wait for our travel approval from China and then get an appointment at the U.S. Consulate for the end of our trip. They will work backwards from that date, making all our other necessary appointments, and then they can tell us when to meet them in Hong Kong. That should be sometime in early December.

We have information from a medical report taken in June. It says she weighed 8.8kg at this time, which is about 19.4 pounds. That seems heavy to me, and many people say that these reports don't turn out to be very accurate, so we'll just have to see when we get there. :) She had 4 teeth in June, and I would guess she will have more by December. She sleeps from 8:00pm-7:00am and takes a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. She eats meat congee 3 times a day, which is kind of a rice/meat brothy cereal, I think. She also has 7 oz. of milk twice a day, but I don't know if that is still out of a bottle. One of my favorite parts of the report was this: "Personality: Active, loves smiling, quick in reaction. She is a lovely little girl." We think so, too!!

On the home front, we have bunked the guest beds back up, and the 'purple room' can now be called 'Audrey's room.' Mark and Ian had a wonderful surprise for me tonight - I came home late from a meeting, and the crib was up! :) It looks great, and for those of you who knew we were missing the hardware, the hardware Mark bought at the store was just right.

I have filled out our Chinese Visa applications and we can take those to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago anytime we want to. We may have to wait until later in November to do that, so we can swing by and see Audrey's new cousin Maddie, who is due to be born in a few weeks. I picture many fun times for these two little cousins in the years to come! :)

I have a meeting with our social worker tomorrow, to sign some more papers, and I don't know what else. We have not finalized Audrey's complete English name yet, but I know we have to do that soon. May need to discuss that over breakfast, if it is needed for tomorrow's meeting!

That's about all I know for now. Thanks again for sharing our joy this week!

Introducing...

Our beautiful new daughter! We are overjoyed to share with you the referral of Ye Fangying. We think she is just precious and feel so blessed that this day is finally here! She was born July 3, 2008, and is in the Guangxi province in southern China.

We don't know much more than that at the moment, and I can hardly type, so enjoy the pictures, and we will post more as we learn it! :)

Yes! *updated*

*Update: Someone in the central U.S. has reported receiving their referral! Let's go, phone - RING!

The latest word this morning is that referrals are arriving in Europe for people with the same LID as us, so that means either later today or sometime tomorrow for us! I can hardly believe this is happening, and am so excited I don't know what to do!! :)

Progress! :)

Agencies in Europe, who are well into their Monday business day, are reporting an official cutoff of 3/28/06. We are in! :) I feel bad for the many people with a 3/29/06 LID who thought that they would be in this month also, but am feeling pretty excited this morning for this progress. This means we should (but you know that's not a definite) be hearing something this week. WOW! :)

Back to business!

A little tidbit is out there that the CCAA is heading back to work on Friday, could possibly mail referrals on Friday, which could possibly arrive on Monday! :) Nothing definite at all, and maybe just some wishful thinking on some agency's part. Personally, I will believe it when I see it. My expectations are fairly low at this point, and that way, if nothing happens at all next week, I will not be disappointed. I am not trying to be a Negative Nelly, but I don't really want to hop on the wild ride that we all rode a couple of weeks ago. That was exhausting.

Now, on the off chance that things do get rolling next week, luck would have it that I have about my busiest week of the school year so far! I will be out 2 full days with different 7th grade activities, and no email availability during the day! Yikes! That would be so hard to get that call and not be able to see a picture right away. But - time will tell and you will all be sure to know when we know something! :)