When Love Takes You In - Steven Curtis Chapman

Need I say more... Grab a kleenex before you listen to this one. Apparently Steven has adopted 3 children from China, one of which is the little girl in the video. ENJOY!

9 months...

Tomorrow we hit the 9-month mark on our wait... The pregnancy should be over, but it looks as if it is just beginning. The way it stands in China right now, we are looking at another 11 to 12 months wait... 2 pregnancies and 1/2 !!!! Not too sure what we are going to do with ourselves for that amount of time??? I was actually thinking of taking German lessons starting in January, that way my German will be much more proficient when Emily does arrive! Thinking of joining a gym as well!?! Anybody have any other good ideas...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Christmas is almost here. There is a rumour that updates are coming from China before Christmas... Not that it really makes a difference for us at this point...
We are leaving for Nova Scotia on the 24th and will be staying there from the 25th to the 3rd. Sean goes back to work on the 4th and I go back on the 8th. Still hoping for a white Christmas, although the dry roads will help our drive down to N.S. (15 hours!)

We want to wish everyone a happy Hanukkah, very Merry Christmas, and of course a good start to the New Year 2007!!! With any luck, this will be our last Christmas as a couple... But then again I said that last year and look where we are at now... They had cute Christmas dresses at COSTO, how I wish I had someone to buy one for...

UPDATE time

For November, they have processed another 14 days of files, and so we are now up to Sept. 8th 2005. Long term predictions look very bleak... I bought Emily a cute little outfit and some body suits. Everything is hanging in her cupboard... waiting...

As Christmas apporaches and thoughts of fetivities begin, I find myself dreading the arrival of Santa Claus for the first time in my life. We were at Toys'R'Us on the weekend, and as luck would have it, I ran into at least 2 women who looked like they were ready to "pop" !! My first thought was "AHHH, a baby for Christmas, how wonderful!" Then the second thought quickly crept in "I want Emily for Christmas!!!"
Since we are going to visit Sean's mother, we have decided not to put up a tree this year... THANK GOD! In the boxes of ornaments is a small mitten ormanent that I purchased last year and wrote "see you next year Emily." There is NO way I could look at that. It's enough that I see it in my mind's eye. The trip will be a good distraction... hopefully...
Updates should be coming this week...

Quilt of Wishes

I've received some questions about my quilt of wishes, so I'll try to clarify.
All I am asking for is a small piece of material, 8" x 8". It can be ANY materials you have at home. On a separate little note card, write your wishes for Emily - remember, if you want to see an example, go to www.quiltofwishes.com. At the bottom of the note, stick a small (can be finger nail size) piece of your material. I will take all the notes and put them in a scrap book, and I will take the pieces of material and sow a quilt. Later, Emily will be able to take the scrap book, read the wishes, and find the matching square on her quilt.
Sorry if this sounded like it was more complicated than that... It really wasn't mean to be.

UPDATE!!

They have worked through another 16 days worth of files in the past month, and have sent referrals to family with a LID (log in date) up to August 25th 2005 > remember, our LID is March 21st 2006.

They also finished reviewing the file with LIDs up to January 31st 2006!!! They are finally in 2006!!! We are getting closer!!!! We won't know officially when our file is in the review room, but as soon as we hear that they have finished reviewing the month of March, you can be sure that we will be celebrating (1 step closer to Emily!!!!)
Have a great week-end.

Baby Shower

So, how have I been keeping busy during this long wait? Well, a baby shower sure helped! That toy box is FULL of cute little toys and all kinds of necessities of our little one. And what a surprise I got! I will try to post some more pictures soon.Emily's room is slowly starting to look like a little girl's room...

HELLO!

The idea to create this blog came long ago, the time to create it has only now come. I wanted all our friends and family who might be interested in following our journey to Emily to be able to do so without the need to ask us "SO?" every other day.

Our file was registered in China on March 21st, 2006. This is called our "Log In Date" or LID. About once a month, the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) sends out an update letting everyone know what LID they are done "matching" and which they have done "reviewing."
Basically, the process is that our file waits to go to the "review room." Once our file has been reviewed in China (they make sure that all the paperwork checks out) then our file goes to the "matching room." This is where they "match" you with a waiting child.
We only officially hear from them if there is a problem with our file when it goes in to the review room, or then once they have matched our file with a waiting child. SO... Basically, 1) wait 2)file goes to review room - if all checks out with them 3) file goes to matching room AND then 4) we get a picture of Emily. 6 to 8 weeks after that... we are off to China !

As of today, the CCAA has finished reviewing the files with a LID up to December 31st, 2005, and they have finshed matching the files with a LID up to August 9th 2005. So, as you can see, our file has not even gone into the review room yet, much less the matching room; we are still at WAIT, WAIT, and WAIT some more. How long will that all take? Wouldn't Sean and I love to know!!!