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 Mei's Story Welcome to Mei's Story! Jen wanted me to set up this website so that she could keep all of our friends and family updated on the adoption process. Below are her journal entries. The most recent entries are shown first. For more information on who we are and about our family, please check out the links section of this page. So, scroll on down to the bottom and read your way to the top. It has already been an exciting ride and I know it will get even more exciting as time goes by. September 13, 2006 It has been a long 9 months since our LID. Nothing to report other than we are still playing the waiting game. The adoption process has almost come to a standstill on China's side. That is ok. The Lord knows who our baby is and when we need to find her. But waiting is tough. The only good news is that our application is in the review room. Hopefully we will be cleared through that. Then more waiting. We will keep you updated. _________________________________________________________ We got our LID (Log In Date). It's December 12. This means we are officially in the system at the CCAA(China Center of Adoption Affairs). We will be keeping track of all referrals from here on out. They usually come once a month. We are group 122B. And the next group to get their referrals is 115B. So that kinda puts it in perspective. Right now the CCAA is in a slow down mode. We are praying for a catch up these next few months. They have traditionally been releasing an entire group per month(both A and B). But the last few months they have only been releasing half groups(only A or B). So we’ll keep track of the next few months so we can sort of have an idea of when we are to get our referral. _________________________________________________________ We are finally DTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure of the group number yet, but we will keep you posted. Now we just wait....boy, that is going to be harder than I thought. _________________________________________________________ Well we have an AWESOME God!!!! Mike received payment on his job November 7th. And we handed in our money to the agency on the 11th. Now we are waiting to here that we are DTC(Dossier To China). We will receive a group number and the date our papers arrived in China. As of right now we have a 9 month wait. Just like having a baby. :-) Mike also thinks he has enough work set up to pay for the second half of our adoption. This would be all of our travel expenses. So we are claiming this work as God’s provision for us. We just need God to shake these jobs loose like he did with the first half. _________________________________________________________ Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!!!! We had our adoption fundraiser yard sale yesterday and it was GREAT!! We made right at $1200 dollars. We also have had two people give $500 each to us for Mei. God is sooo good!!! Our prayer right now is for the Lord to "Shake Lose" the money that is owed to Mike so we can be one step closer to our Mei Mei. _________________________________________________________ Well the good news is we were able to turn in our dossier last Tuesday , September 6. We paid for it to be sent off to Huston for one final step and the agency will hold it for us until we can pay for the rest of it. As for the money... We are still waiting for Mike to be paid. We hope to be DTC (Dossier To China) in October. Please be praying for the Lord’s timing in our journey to Mei. _________________________________________________________ Hooray!!!! Our I-171H is here!!!!! (immigration approval). We received it in the mail on the 27th. I was dancing all through the house!!! On the down side of things though... Mike found out today that he will not be able to get paid for some side work he did until the middle of September. I, personally, am extremely bummed! That means we have to put things off for a month. So I’m trying to choose to trust the Lord in all this. He has Mei in his hands and he knows best. _________________________________________________________ Sorry it’s been a while since my last journal entry. A few things have happened, but not a whole lot. We received a letter from immigration asking that our homestudy be reworded in one area. It seems that they want to see that Mike and I said “no” when asked if we had any criminal background. The homestudy said that we said no, but the word NO was not in quotation marks. So the caseworker wrote an addendum to the homestudy and we sent that back to immigration on Monday, August 15th. So we are hoping to receive our approval in the mail this week. All we will need to do after that is have it notarized, certified at the county level and then we will send all of our 13 documents to Atlanta to have the State Seal. When we get those documents back to us, we can then take our dossier to our agency. They then send the dossier to Texas to get the National Seal. Finally it will be sent to Canada to be translated and then off to China it goes. Sound complicated??? Well, it is but very necessary to China. We were able to attend an informational meeting in Atlanta this past weekend. Mike has written a post about it on his website. He wrote exactly how I feel. My heart aches for my daughter everyday. I long to hold her in my arms. Please continue to pray for work for Mike. _________________________________________________________ Our fingerprint appointment went great! We were in and out in an hour. Then Mike and I took the rest of the weekend as a mini vacation. We had the best time! The director of China adoption at our agency mailed me yesterday to let me know that our HS had been sent to CIS already. And she also let us know that we needed to have our completed dossier in by the end of August or beginning of September to have a September DTC(Dossier to China). Then the clock would start to count down to our referral. We are praying for a speedy approval from CIS and for money to come in from Mike’s last side job. _________________________________________________________ Mike got his passport a few days ago and Randolph County finally got everything right!!!! I went to Mike’s work and had three more papers notarized and then went to the courthouse to have the notary certified on them. We are done with our end of the paper chase. The only two things we have left are to get our Homestudy and our immigration (CIS) approval. The HS(homestudy) will be sent to us and to CIS. Once CIS has it they can process our stuff. I’m just unsure of how long that will take. So pray that it will be quick and everything will move right on through. Once we get approval then we send everything off to Atlanta to be State certified. THEN…….off to China. We are hoping for a September DTC(Dossier To China). Also be praying for the second half of the funds for the adoption. At this time we do not have any of the money required. Mike has some leads on some small jobs. Pray that he lands a few large ones and that other money becomes available. _________________________________________________________ I had another dream about Mei last night. In this dream I was holding both Madi and Mei. They were very close in age. I remember thinking that I loved her so much. Just like my other children. She had a lot of hair and chubby cheeks. I woke up so happy. _________________________________________________________ I received my passport in the mail. I cam officially go anywhere in the world! _________________________________________________________ Went and picked up the bank letter today. I also received my BC in the mail!!! WOW!!! That was Speedy!!!!!! Mike is going to try to finish the last few papers at work this week. _________________________________________________________ Last HS visit!!!!! We went over our rough draft. Found a few typo’s. But other than that everything went great.!!! Hooray!!!!! _________________________________________________________ I mailed my documents to Randolph County. And Mikes BC to get the VA State Seal on it. I also asked our bank to write a letter saying how much we had in our accounts and have it notarized. Charlie’s TB test came out negative!!!!! All the way to the health dept. he was saying “No more Boo Boos! No more Boo Boos!” We had our third visit with our case worker today!!! All went fine. _________________________________________________________ I found out how to convert pounds to kilograms and feet and inches to meters. I looked it up online. So I just made the corrections myself. I had a mild panic attack today when I found out that the Secretary of State would not accept my birth certificate if it was issued from a health dept. It needed to come from the Dept. of Vital Records. When I went online to find out how to do that, they said it would take about 12 weeks. Thus ensued my panic. But only momentarily…. I found a website that will order them and get them here in 10 days. So I’m going to do that. I also had an interesting conversation with Randolph County Clerk of Superior Court today. I was trying to explain to her that I need them to attach a letter to two document certifying that the notary who notarized those documents was indeed a notary in Randolph County. Are you confused yet? Well she sure was. They had never done anything like that ever. At one point she exclaimed,” Why would China care if a po-dunk little town like Cuthbert certified anything!!!” She would not let me send her the papers until she called Atlanta and verified what needed to be done. I called later that afternoon and it seemed that Atlanta had told her that I was right. _________________________________________________________ June 20th was the day from Hell. It started off good enough but ended horribly. The kids Dr. appointments were that afternoon. They each had to have a physical and a TB skin test done. So everything was going well until the dreaded TB test. Madi’s went off without a hitch. Nathan took one look at the needle and started to panic. I never could get him to be still. And Charlie literally squealed like a pig and fought with all his might until the nurses finally gave up. I ended up having to call Mike to come help. He ended up able to help with Nathan, but not with Charlie. Poor Charlie left with 4 pokes in his arm, but no test done. So we all left in tears including Mamma. We are set to go to the health dept. this Wed. to try to get Charlie’s test done again. Pray that this goes well. So when I get home our social worker had called and cancelled. Which was probably a good thing seeing the mood everyone was in. When I called her back it seemed she still did not have our papers for the HS. So I told her we would worry about it when we got back from vacation. We’ve been waiting for our fingerprint appt. and it finally came on the 20th. I was thinking this was going to be good news for our yucky day... Not to be. Our appt. was set for right in the middle of our vacation. So we had to send it back with a request for another date. Oh well... I knew there would be setbacks…. It’s just the Lord leading us to the perfect daughter for our family. GOOD NEWS... We got our reschedule date only one week later. We are due to go back on the 30th of July. BTW I thought that all our medical stuff was done until I looked more closely and found that not all of the blanks were filled. So took it back and they filled them in, no problem. Then tonight we were talking with some friends of ours who are also adopting from China. They suggested that I take a look at the papers to make sure that they put our weight and height in kg and meters. And sure enough they had not. So guess what ….. I have to go back AGAIN!!!! I sure will be glad when all this paper chase stuff is done! _________________________________________________________ I went to have my background check done today. I had to go all the way out to the jail to have it done. And when I got there and told the clerk what I needed done and how I needed it done, She refused to do it. I needed her to write out a letter stating that I was not a criminal. She claimed they didn’t do it that way. We went round and round and she would not budge. So I finally asked her if she could at least notarize the paper I had filled out. And she said yes. When I got the paper back the notary had 2 yrs left on her certification(GREAT!!!) But she was from Randolph County(NOT GREAT) This means we will have to go all the way to Randolph County to have that paper authenticated. About an hour away. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great day. I picked up our medical papers today also. So that is one more thing we can check off our list. _________________________________________________________ Our first homestudy visit went great. Our caseworker came and walked through our house with us so she could see how many bedrooms and stuff. She asked a few questions but was only here for a few minutes. So one down and three to go. Our next one is on Monday, June 20. The kids have their medical visits then too. I’m sure this will be a horrendous visit. I think they all have to have TB tests done. Plus Madi has her one year shots. Definitely not fun! We received our receipt from CIS today. Fingerprint date should follow soon. _________________________________________________________ I received a call from our caseworker today. She said that we need to have four visits with her. So our first is set for June 13. I really can’t wait to meet her. She was extremely nice and willing to do all the HS visits at our home. My mom is going to come over on Saturday to help get this place looking good. I also called about my birth certificates today. They said to send them back and they would emboss them for me. So I should have those in a few days. Mike and I have our physicals tomorrow morning. Hopefully it won’t be too much poking and prodding. _________________________________________________________ We have had our first set back. When I opened up my birth certificates, none of them had been embossed. Oh well, I will call tomorrow and straighten things out. I’m sure this is just the first of many, many setbacks. I guess I had better get used to it. Plus, as Mike reminds me, all of the mistakes we make along the way are going to lead us to the perfect daughter that God has planned for us. _________________________________________________________ Yesterday I found out what it would take to get our passports done. We need to have a certified birth certificate, copy of driver’s license, the application, and of course the pictures. I sent off for our birth certificates today and downloaded the application from on line. Hopefully we will get them next week. I would like to send off our application next week since it takes 6 weeks to get your passport. We need to have a copy of it to send in our dossier. We leave today to take Madi back to Tampa to get her new shoes!!!!! Yea!!!! _________________________________________________________ Mike made the announcement in church today about us adopting Mei. Most people knew that we were working on this, but now everyone knows. One of the couples from church approached us and told us they had considered adoption several years ago. The Lord led them in a different direction, but they had done a lot of research on China adoptions. It was nice to talk to someone who knew exactly what I was talking about concerning paper work and dossiers. Anyway, maybe this will spark a new interest in China adoption for them. Wouldn't that be awesome!!!! _________________________________________________________ TODAY IS THE DAY! We are ready to send off our immigration papers, home study papers, fingerprints, and contracts. We are officially at the half way point with the paper work. Next we will start working on the dossier. That entails a lot more foot work, signatures, and authentications. We prayed over the papers last night and are mailing them today. Our next step will be to have our home study visits and to go be fingerprinted in Atlanta for immigration. We are sooo very excited. I think we finally feel like we are moving forward. _________________________________________________________ Mike and I went to the Sheriff's office to be fingerprinted today. Send off is tomorrow. _________________________________________________________ I can't believe we have our home study papers together already. All we have left is to get fingerprinted. Mike also needs to write his autobiography. We plan to go on Thursday to be fingerprinted and those will be mailed off on Friday along with our CIS and HS papers. Today we had all of the contracts notarized. We will send them on Friday too. We also decided to change the spelling of Mae's name to Mei. _________________________________________________________ Talked to Barbara Stroud yesterday to clarify some the paper chase stuff. Mike and I have decided to go on and get started. I started filling out my questionnaires last night. Today I have been working on my autobiography. I made all of our Dr. appointments for our physicals. Mike and I have ours on June 7th. The kid's on June 20th. We hopefully will get fingerprinted next week. _________________________________________________________ I had a dream last night about Mae. She was older and we were in China. She had a lot of hair. Her middle name was Mei and in my dream we decided to call her Mei Mei as a knick name. The interesting thing is that Mei is pronounced just like Mae. Mei means "younger sister" in Chinese and Mei Mei means the same. So we decided we would name her Mei. When I woke up, I woke Mike up to tell him about it. Up until now we both felt that we should wait until September. But because of the money provided and the dream I had, we have decided to get going by the middle of July. Just can’t wait! _________________________________________________________ Mike found out that we can borrow more on our loan. Mike also was given the opportunity to do some engineering work on the side. With the loan and the extra work for Mike, we have enough money to do the first half of the adoption. Now we can get started. _________________________________________________________ Mae had been on my mind a lot. So I started to pray for her all during the day. I told Mike I didn't know why , but I sensed an urgency to pray for her. When I awoke on the 7th, that feeling was gone. Maybe I will find out later why I felt that way. _________________________________________________________ Madi's appointment. Dr. wants to do a series of castings on Madi. We will be going every 2 weeks for about three months. We now know why God had us wait on the adoption. He is so good. _________________________________________________________ We heard from Shriners Hospital. They want Madi to come in on the 17th. _________________________________________________________ We found out that Madi, our little 9 month old, was going to need surgery on her clubfoot. Knowing there was no Pediatric Orthopedic Doctor here in Albany, we decided to contact our local Shriners. My mother happened to know one of the Shriners personally, and she told us to go fill out an application for Madi to go the their hospital in Tampa. _________________________________________________________ After looking at option after option and all doors closing, we started to seek council on our finances. Should we ask family members for money? Should we take a home equity loan? All the counseling and seeking the Lord said to wait. So reluctantly, very reluctantly on my part, we decided to wait. _________________________________________________________ Our adoption handbook arrived. Very overwhelming with everything we had to do. The finance schedule was all laid out. So we started to seek different options of financing. _________________________________________________________ Got a call from Barbara Stroud from The Open Door. Our application was approved!!!! We were soooo excited!!! Barbara said she would send a booklet of info for us. _________________________________________________________ Sent off application to agency. We also started telling family members about our good news. Everyone was thrilled. _________________________________________________________ It was this month that the Lord gave Mike a place and name. He told him that there was a little girl in China waiting for us and we should name her Mae. So every night we would pray for Mae and her safety. We also started praying for guidance as to which adoption agency we should go with. After a little bit of research we decided to go with The Open Door Adoption Agency out of Thomasville, GA. They are Christian agency that handles both domestic and international adoptions. Anyway, we decided to wait until January to send in our application. _________________________________________________________ Mike approached me one night after dinner and out of the blue says, "What do you think about adopting?" Well, I have to admit I was a little taken back. You see when we were dating I asked Mike what he thought about adopting and he said, (and I quote),"There is no way I could love an adopted child like my own." For more info on Mikes change of heart go here. So I never, ever brought it up again. We went on to get married and have three children. I even had my tubes tied. So you can imagine the look on my face when he started talking about adoption. He went on to tell me that the Lord had put this on his heart and really wanted to pray about it. So that is exactly what we did. About a month later we decided that it was the Lord's desire for us to adopt. _________________________________________________________ |
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