10.24.2007
Where is Hudson?
This is what we know so far about the Gansu Province where Hudson's orphange is located. " The ancient Silk Road wound it's way through Gansu for years, bringing new peoples, languages, goods, ideas, and beliefs into the Chinese Empire. Over 70% of this rugged province is made up of mountains and plateaus. Near the city of Pingliang (where Hudson is) in eastern Gansu Province stands the most famous and sacred mountains - Mount Kongdong. The landscape of this important Taoist site is dotted with temples and pagodas. The people of Pingliang, population 460,000, adhere to atheism or traditional Chinese religions such as Buddhism and Taoism. A significant number of Muslim Hui people also live in the city. Less than 1% of Pingliang's residents are followers of Christ."
10.22.2007
LOI!
Today we were LOI. This means our Letter Of Intent was electronically sent to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) telling them we intend to adopt Xiao. We now sit back and wait for our RA, Referral Approval which means the CCAA says, "Yes, you can adopt Xiao". This can take anywhere from 2-5 months to receive and then we will travel 2-6 weeks after that. We obviously hope we are on the 2 month side of the wait. Hudson gets a day older everyday and yet everyday we are one day closer to bringing him home. At this point we could travel as early as February which we are praying for.
10.21.2007
We have a name....
We have finally chosen a name for our little boy. Hudson Xiao Teague. We knew we would use part of his/her chinese name. We have had a girl name picked out since before we began our paperwork but didn't even consider boy names as we always thought we would get a girl. Last spring we started throwing around boy names. With 5 people giving their opinion nothing ever was agreed on. I had heard Hudson about three years ago and loved it. This seemed to be the name that got the most approval from everyone. Mark and I were talking the other night and he said "Wait a minute, wasn't Hudson Taylor a missionary to China?" We both knew he had been a missionary, just not remembering where. We went and looked it up and sure enough, he was the first to bring the gospel to China. That sealed the deal so we have finally began to refer to him as Hudson, a bit hard as we have been calling him Xiao. Xiao is actually pronounced Show, like in shower or rhyming with plow. We will probably refer to him as Xiao when we first get him and slowly transition to Hudson.
We did receive some updated pictures of him last week. He has had his lip repaired and looks great. Very healthy and with the most irristible checks. We can't wait to get our hands on him!! We did not receive any written info so we don't know when his surgery was but it appears to be awhile ago as he is quite healed. We don't even know if the pictures are recent.
We continue to ask for your prayers for Hudson. We have been praying since we turned in our paperwork for the transition that will take place when we become a family of six. Obviously for Hudson. It will be a huge change for him. We have prayed that he has bonded well with his caretakers and although it will make our first few days together difficult it will be better for him in the long run. We also ask for continued prayers for finances. The Lord has been so faithful to provide all that we have needed so far and we know he will supply the rest.
We did receive some updated pictures of him last week. He has had his lip repaired and looks great. Very healthy and with the most irristible checks. We can't wait to get our hands on him!! We did not receive any written info so we don't know when his surgery was but it appears to be awhile ago as he is quite healed. We don't even know if the pictures are recent.
We continue to ask for your prayers for Hudson. We have been praying since we turned in our paperwork for the transition that will take place when we become a family of six. Obviously for Hudson. It will be a huge change for him. We have prayed that he has bonded well with his caretakers and although it will make our first few days together difficult it will be better for him in the long run. We also ask for continued prayers for finances. The Lord has been so faithful to provide all that we have needed so far and we know he will supply the rest.
10.15.2007
Liang Xiao Yue
Liang Xiao Yue is in the Social Welfare Institute of PingLiang City in the Gansu Province. He just turned 2 on Sept. 13. His special need is a cleft lip/cleft palate. Lauren believes his lip has been repaired but we wont know until we receive updated information from China. The pictures we have of him are over a year old so we cannot wait to see what he looks like now.
We spent the week last week talking w/ our pediatrican and several specialists to see what lies ahead of us. Many surgeries and speech therapy but we are more than willing to do what Xiao needs. I cannot post any pictures of Xiao until we get our acceptance from China. This can take anywhere from 2-5 months. We would ask that you pray that it would be soooner rather than later. Once we receive our RA (referral acceptance) we will wait on our TA (travel approval) which gives us permission to go pick up Xiao. Because he is already two it is important we get him home as soon as we can to begin his corrective surgeries. The longer his surgery is put off the more it will affect his speech. We officially accepted our referral today so now we begin a second round of paperwork to update our homestudy. We hope to send our LOI (letter of intent) to China this week which asks them to approve us in adopting Xiao. Please also pray for our little guy, that he is receiving good care and is loved by the women caring for him at the orphanage. I will post every few days to update you on our progress. We would love to hear from you!!
We spent the week last week talking w/ our pediatrican and several specialists to see what lies ahead of us. Many surgeries and speech therapy but we are more than willing to do what Xiao needs. I cannot post any pictures of Xiao until we get our acceptance from China. This can take anywhere from 2-5 months. We would ask that you pray that it would be soooner rather than later. Once we receive our RA (referral acceptance) we will wait on our TA (travel approval) which gives us permission to go pick up Xiao. Because he is already two it is important we get him home as soon as we can to begin his corrective surgeries. The longer his surgery is put off the more it will affect his speech. We officially accepted our referral today so now we begin a second round of paperwork to update our homestudy. We hope to send our LOI (letter of intent) to China this week which asks them to approve us in adopting Xiao. Please also pray for our little guy, that he is receiving good care and is loved by the women caring for him at the orphanage. I will post every few days to update you on our progress. We would love to hear from you!!
ITS A BOY!!
On October 9, 2007 at 11:12 am I received a call from our agency. They had the file of a little boy they wanted to know if we were interested in reviewing. OF COURSE we were.
Lauren, our case coordinator, told me she would email his file and after I talked with Mark to let her know if we wanted to move forward and review the rest of his file. I ran to my computer to wait for his file...there he was, this sweet baby boy with big round eyes. I then went to call Mark. Mark happened to be in trial that day so of course his phone was turned off. I then tried my mom, no luck either at her house or her cell phone. I finally tracked her down at her church (after mistakingly calling 911 instead of 411!!....was I excited or what?) Since it was almost noon I figured Mark would call me when they broke for lunch. Sure enough, about 12 he called. He was a little speechless. Thankfully he had done his closing so he wasn't thrown off for the remainder of the trial. After talking with Mark I went to the kids school and found Jordan. I couldn't wait to tell him he had a brother as he was pretty insistent he did not need another sister....teenagers! Kailee was on a field trip so I waited to tell her and Madalyn till they were together after school. Mark rushed back to Sherman after his trial (he won!!) and got to my office about the same time the girls did to look at the pictures. We were all so excited although it also all seemed a little unreal. We had already decided to tell Lauren, yes, we wanted to review the rest of the file.
Lauren, our case coordinator, told me she would email his file and after I talked with Mark to let her know if we wanted to move forward and review the rest of his file. I ran to my computer to wait for his file...there he was, this sweet baby boy with big round eyes. I then went to call Mark. Mark happened to be in trial that day so of course his phone was turned off. I then tried my mom, no luck either at her house or her cell phone. I finally tracked her down at her church (after mistakingly calling 911 instead of 411!!....was I excited or what?) Since it was almost noon I figured Mark would call me when they broke for lunch. Sure enough, about 12 he called. He was a little speechless. Thankfully he had done his closing so he wasn't thrown off for the remainder of the trial. After talking with Mark I went to the kids school and found Jordan. I couldn't wait to tell him he had a brother as he was pretty insistent he did not need another sister....teenagers! Kailee was on a field trip so I waited to tell her and Madalyn till they were together after school. Mark rushed back to Sherman after his trial (he won!!) and got to my office about the same time the girls did to look at the pictures. We were all so excited although it also all seemed a little unreal. We had already decided to tell Lauren, yes, we wanted to review the rest of the file.
10.12.2007
Why Adoption and Why China?
As a child I always dreamed about adopting when I grew up and my heart was in Asia. Mark and I met, married and began our family. Although Mark was adopted with a younger biological brother into a great family he wasn't as crazy about the adoption idea as I was. Our first years of marriage were busy with law school and raising three young kids. It wasn't until the summer of 05 that we started to seriously talk about adoption. We could come up with all kids of reasons why adoption would NOT fit into our life. The cost, the fact that our youngest was 8 and our oldest a teenager, the time and energy a little one takes and the fact that we were both approaching 40. Despite our many excuses we always came back to two things; 1. Adoption wasn't about us but about doing something that would have eternal purpose and 2. We didn't want to be 65 and have regret, wondering "what if". We had to at least try.
We began to research agencies and countries and chose America World Adoption Agency. We loved their heart for adoption based on Romans 8:15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirt of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." We looked at different countries including here in the US but felt called to China. We knew it was expensive and a long process but when you feel that strongly about something nothing will stand in your way. We applied with America World, were accepted and began the year long process of collecting paperwork for our dossier. This is basically our life on paper that gets sent to China and is as precious as gold. We were logged into China's system on February 9, 2007 (which is our LID, a significant thing in an adoption) and sat back for what we figured would be about a year long wait. Because of China's One Child Policy we knew we would receive a little girl somewhere between 6 months and two years old.
For many reasons the wait time for a healthy child began to increase every month. When we began our adoption journey the wait was about 8 months once you had your LID. By the time we sent our dossier to China it had increased to 12 months and right now the wait time is 23 months and still increasing. During our paper chase we began to learn about the Special Needs program. This is a program some agencies offer where you can apply to be considered for a child with minor to significant special needs. We also learned that although girls were readily abandoned in China, there were boys who were also abandoned due to a special need. This past spring, after lots of prayer we decided to update our paperwork to include a special needs male or female 0-2. The list included about 42 special needs and we could say yes to as few or as many as we wanted to. A special need in China can be as minor as a developmental delay (which almost all children in orphanages have) to cerebal palsy. We have been so blessed to have three healthy children and wanted to be open to whomever God had for us. Once again, this wasn't about us or what "fit" into our life. Unlike a healthy child when you know when you'll get a referral we had no idea when we would get a special need referral or even if we would get one. We could get a phone call at any time or in three years. So, the waiting continued........
We began to research agencies and countries and chose America World Adoption Agency. We loved their heart for adoption based on Romans 8:15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirt of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." We looked at different countries including here in the US but felt called to China. We knew it was expensive and a long process but when you feel that strongly about something nothing will stand in your way. We applied with America World, were accepted and began the year long process of collecting paperwork for our dossier. This is basically our life on paper that gets sent to China and is as precious as gold. We were logged into China's system on February 9, 2007 (which is our LID, a significant thing in an adoption) and sat back for what we figured would be about a year long wait. Because of China's One Child Policy we knew we would receive a little girl somewhere between 6 months and two years old.
For many reasons the wait time for a healthy child began to increase every month. When we began our adoption journey the wait was about 8 months once you had your LID. By the time we sent our dossier to China it had increased to 12 months and right now the wait time is 23 months and still increasing. During our paper chase we began to learn about the Special Needs program. This is a program some agencies offer where you can apply to be considered for a child with minor to significant special needs. We also learned that although girls were readily abandoned in China, there were boys who were also abandoned due to a special need. This past spring, after lots of prayer we decided to update our paperwork to include a special needs male or female 0-2. The list included about 42 special needs and we could say yes to as few or as many as we wanted to. A special need in China can be as minor as a developmental delay (which almost all children in orphanages have) to cerebal palsy. We have been so blessed to have three healthy children and wanted to be open to whomever God had for us. Once again, this wasn't about us or what "fit" into our life. Unlike a healthy child when you know when you'll get a referral we had no idea when we would get a special need referral or even if we would get one. We could get a phone call at any time or in three years. So, the waiting continued........
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