Abundant Kindness from Friends

Our travel plans are really coming along! We'll be posting our daily itinerary soon.  Heather spent quite a bit of time today looking at hotels, train schedules, shuttles and private vans.

We've had several surprise blessings from friends that have just overwhelmed us. We can't believe the support we've had from friends throughout this process.  It has been one of the hardest things we've ever done and to have these little blessings a;ong the way is incredibly encouraging and humbling. First of all, every time someone asks us how the process is going it means so much to us. We see little Helen's picture everywhere we go in our house, talk every day about what it will be like to have her here, and even cry sometimes because it's so hard to have someone from our family missing.  Just to know that people take the time to acknowledge what we're going through means a lot.

God really knocked our socks off by blessing us with friends offering to watch our kids while we're gone (and mow our yard, water our garden, drive us to the airport, etc).  And to top it all off, we had two families offer to watch our kids The. Whole. Time.  It will be so nice to not have them be passed from house to house throughout our 15 day trip.  We can never repay such kindness, but we can pray that the Lord will bless you for it.

In addition, we've had some very special friends even give us gifts for Helen. We thought we could share those here just to show how much they mean to us.

Here we have the very first gift Helen received, a pair of squeaky shoes from a fellow adoptive mom that has become a good friend. She got them in China when she adopted her daughter. The shirt and book were a gift from another friend on Helen's first birthday. That one had me (Heather) in tears :)

This is an incredibly sweet gift from a friend that has done a LOT of traveling.

We got this in the mail a few days ago, and I don't even have words to describe how it makes me feel. Overwhelmed with gratitude. Oh, and it was anonymous, which drives me mad because I can't thank them properly!!!  Whoever you are, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

These pjs are so adorable that Ella wishes she could fit into them. They've already been washed and packed in our suitcase to bring to China :)

This one blows my mind. A friend from church spent 25-30 hours on this quilt! Not only that, but she took the time to go with me to the fabric store to pick out the fabrics I wanted because I had no idea what to look for. It matches Helen's room perfectly and will be such a treasured item.

We are so blessed. Undeserving, but blessed.

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38

Flights are Booked!

Yes, that's right, we have booked our flights!  It was the culmination of a pretty hectic & stressful week.  Sorry for not posting sooner, but it's been a full weekend (Heather ran a 5K race Friday evening, and we just had a lot of other family activities and church events going on).  We now know for sure that "Gotcha Day" will be July 16!

This past Thursday the fares were still as low as we had ever seen them, but we had to wait until Friday morning for a final-final confirmation of dates from our adoption agency.  We were worried that the ticket prices could jump up, and we also didn't want to book prematurely due to a minimum $250 rescheduling fee per ticket.  So, we gave the airline a call and we were on the phone (mostly on hold) for about an hour.  A supervisor pulled a few strings and was able to hold the rate for us until 11:00pm Friday.  They also agreed to waive the reschedule fee should we have to change our flights after they were booked!  What an answer to prayer!

We're flying from Cedar Rapids to Hong Kong via Detroit on July 12, and we'll return home with the same layover on July 27.  We were able to get a bulkhead exit row on the long flight to Hong Kong, and we paid a small fee to upgrade to a bulkhead "economy comfort" row on the flight home with Helen.  That leg is more than 15 hours each way.  Ugh.

So, the end is finally feeling real and within reach!  The next step is to book all of our in-country travel (hotels, trains, guides, drivers to appointments, etc.).  Continued prayers for low travel costs (this time within China itself) would be much appreciated!

We're coming, Helen!  You'll be in our arms in 36 more days, and your big sister & brother will be waiting for you at home!!!

Happy Belated Birthday to Heather!!!

Recap of our final-steps checklist:

• Receive LOA (CHECK!)
• Send I-800 application to USCIS (CHECK!)
• USCIS forwards our approval to the National Visa Center to petition for baby girl's visa (CHECK!)
• The NVC forwards the approved visa petition to the US Consulate in Guangzhou China (CHECK!)
• The Consulate reviews the visa application (the DS-230), makes sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed (CHECK!)
• The approval is forwarded to the CCCWA, which issues our Travel Approval! (BIG CHECK!!!!!)

Yes, we received our Travel Approval (TA) today, one day after Heather's birthday!!!  We'll find out in the next day or so when our final Consulate Appointment will occur in China, and then we can book tickets.  We'll most likely be travelling July 13-27 to get our daughter Helen!

Our biggest prayer request right now:  Low airfare!!!  As of right now (Tuesday) the ticket prices are around $1700 each.  They've been as high as $2800 each!  Pray, pray, pray that we'll be able to secure our tickets at the low end of the spectrum!

We'll blog more as we learn more, you can count on it!  :-)

We've Been Busy

We're still eagerly anticipating of our Travel Approval (TA), but we've been keeping ourselves busy by getting baby girl's room ready.  In fact, other than finding a set of new curtains, her room is completely ready to go!  The walls and crib have been freshly repainted, the walls are covered with butterfly decals, and all of the furniture is in place.  We had a family friend give us a wonderful gift for baby's room:  a hand-made quilt!  She did an amazing job and we're so humbled that she spent about 30 hours of her personal time to do this for our new daughter.  Take a look at it hanging on baby's crib:

Oops, is that some kind of new artwork hanging on the wall?

:-) 

Yes, we feel it's time to share baby girl's name with the world.  We're less than two months away from bringing Helen Joy Songxiang Adolphs home!  Helen was Steve's maternal grandmother's middle name and means "shining light".  Joy is Heather's mother's middle name and its meaning is pretty obvious.  Songxiang is coincidentally Heather's cousin's name.... or maybe not. 

Hopefully the next time we're writing a blog post, it will be to share the news of receiving TA!  Heather's birthday is coming up on June 4, and what a great birthday present that would be.  We're praying!

Getting Closer!!

One more step down, one to go!!  The US Consulate finished processing our daughter's visa and has signed off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed.  Our agency's in-China representative picked up this approval from the Consulate yesterday and will deliver it to the CCCWA.  This means our wait for Travel Approval (TA) has begun!!  Let's check this off our list:

• Receive LOA (CHECK!)
• Send I-800 application to USCIS (CHECK!)
• USCIS forwards our approval to the National Visa Center to petition for baby girl's visa (CHECK!)
• The NVC forwards the approved visa petition to the US Consulate in Guangzhou China (CHECK!)
• The Consulate reviews the visa application (the DS-230), makes sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed (CHECK!)
• The approval is forwarded to the CCCWA, which issues our Travel Approval!

Travel Approvals are currently taking about 2 weeks to receive.  Our agency's next two travel dates are June 29 and July 13.  WE WILL BE LEAVING ONE OF THOSE DATES!!!  Unfortunately, we won't know which date until at least the second week in June when our TA comes.  This brings us to prayer requests, if anyone feels led to pray for us:

• Please pray that the dates we need for our Consulate appointment will be available when we get our TA.  This is what decides whether we get to go in June or July, and also determines the length of our trip (please pray for SHORT AS POSSIBLE since we're leaving Ella & Myles here).
• Please pray for a miracle when it comes time to book our plane tickets. June/July is the most expensive and busy time to fly to China. We've been watching the ticket prices climb over the past several weeks.  Or maybe I should pray for someone with an extra 75,000 Delta airline miles that they weren't planning on using!  :)
• Please pray for our hearts to be calm and simply rest in the knowledge that God is in control. The next month is bound to be crazy (our to-do list has no less than 60 items on it) but we'd like to have quality family time and to continue to glorify God in all that we do no matter how crazy it gets.

We don't have any pictures related to this, but we'll leave you with another one of our favorites from our last update:

Just What We Needed Today!

This is JUST what I (Heather) needed today!  I was feeling pretty down this morning. This wait is starting to take its toll on me and I haven't been getting as much sleep lately so I am feeling pretty run-down. Then, THIS shows up in our email inboxes:

Be still my heart!  Isn't she just beautiful!!  This picture came with an update from our agency.  She is healthy, growing, and now has 12 teeth!!  Her hair is growing in nicely too :)  It's kind of bittersweet to see the new pictures, as she is getting so big and growing up without us.  We shipped a picture book to China a few months ago with photos of us and the kids, and they confirmed that she received it.  How great to think that she's been able to look at photos of her family!  We're so glad her caretakers are so responsive to requests for updates.  That has really been a blessing to us.  We know of others waiting to get their little ones who are having a much harder time getting updates. 

In other exciting news, the National Visa Center has forwarded our visa petition to the US Consulate in China!  One more step down, and only two more to go until Travel Approval!  Given the current typical wait times, we should be in China by July at the latest.  Recap of the remaining steps:

Receive LOA (CHECK!)

Send I-800 application to USCIS (asking US immigration for permission to adopt the child we were specifically matched with)  (CHECK!)

USCIS forwards our approval to the National Visa Center to petition for baby girl's visa  (CHECK!)

The NVC forwards the approved visa petition to the US Consulate in Guangzhou China  (CHECK!)

The Consulate reviews the visa application (the DS-230), makes sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed.

The approval is forwarded to the CCCWA, which issues our Travel Approval!

It's a Good Day!

Lots of good stuff happened today.  The biggest news, we received our I-800 approval from USCIS!  This means US Customs has officially approved us to bring this precious little one into our family.  If things continue to go this smoothly, there's a chance we could be hopping on a plane before the end of June!  If not June, we'll be heading to get her in July.




Also, our Passports arrived back via UPS today, with our China travel visas neatly inserted (see picture).  We're approved to travel to China until April 2013, but thankfully we'll be heading there MUCH sooner than that!


Recap of what's left (starting from our April 11 blog post):

• Receive LOA (CHECK!)
• Send I-800 application to USCIS (CHECK!)
• USCIS forwards our approval to the National Visa Center to petition for baby girl's visa (CHECK!)
• The NVC forwards the approved visa petition to the US Consulate in Guangzhou China
• The Consulate reviews the visa application (the DS-230), makes sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed.
• The approval is forwarded to the CCCWA, which issues our Travel Approval!

We're coming, baby girl!!!