Merry Christmas

Merry Chrismas Princess Peach! Next year, finally we will be together!

Updates

We received updated pictures and measurements. These are from this week. The weight is with clothes on, so her 18.7 pounds could easily be a few pounds less. She is 25.6 inches long.

Fuzhou SWI

We believe that this is Princess Peach's current residence. I realize it looks a bit like the Team Disney building, but I think that's just a coincidence.

A Thought About Prayer

Prayer is something I struggle with. I have a strong desire to be seeking “God’s will,” which makes it really hard to pray my will. I know that God isn’t supposed to be some wishing well where we deposit long lists of special requests and demands. Meanwhile, I know that we are allowed, expected and encouraged to share our hearts with Him, So, it is in this spirit of sharing my heart with God, that I have prayed the following prayers regarding our baby:

1) Initially, we decided we would be happy to be placed with a child of either gender. As the years went by, and we became more deeply immersed in all things boy, the growing desire in my heart was to have a daughter. I quietly prayed for this, in addition to praying that if he chose otherwise, it would be equally awesome, albeit amusing. God, Thanks for sending me a girl.

2) Initially, I prayed that we would go to a province that would be near Beijing, so we would have the opportunity to tour the Great Wall on our trip, and see many of the sights that we witnessed during the Olympics. Recently though, as we have realized that our travel would occur in mid-winter, the prayers have changed drastically to have our daughter in an area that would have a mild temperature to increase our comfort level while in China, and increase our chances of avoiding weather related travel delays. God, thanks for sending us to Nanching, and enabling us to avoid the Beijing weather.

3) We prayed for a child as young as possible, because attachment and related issues become more difficult for the children as they age. Also, my favorite baby age is 9-18 months, and I really prayed that I would not miss much during this time period. God, thanks for matching us with a child that isn’t 8 months old yet.

4) We prayed that Princess Peach would be in foster care or in an orphanage with a Half The Sky Center. Half the Sky is a non-profit organization that sends nannies to the orphanages regularly to interact and play with the children. Although it is too soon to know if Princess Peach is in the program, she is in an orphanage with a Half The Sky Center.

In addition, I have noticed a few extra bonus blessings, that I never thought to pray for:

• Every family with our same match date that I had made a personal connection with prior to receiving our referral has children in the same orphanange as Princess Peach, even ones with different agencies. We will definitely be travelling with the ones from our agency, and hope to travel at the same time as the ones from different agencies.
• Daddy Kong and I were able to be together at the time of the referral phone call because it came on a day when he had previously scheduled a vacation day.
• We were able to be with Daddy Kong's parents when we received our phone call, and the our friends from PA (who also happened to be with us when we received the call that we were accepted for adoption by our agency in 9/05) when we opened up her picture.
• After receiving the referral phone call on Disney Property, we can now claim a perfect record of meeting, getting engaged, married, and receiving a baby on Disney Property.

The Last 48 Hours

Wednesday, Dec. 2: Checked Rumor Queen Website in the morning and saw that it was a Rumor Level 5 that babies had been matched to the families with dates through 3/31/06. Although we suspected Wednesday would be the day calls would start, we weren’t certain. This rumor certainly increased the chances that calls would follow soon, even if it wasn’t Wednesday.

By lunch time, the Rumor Queen Site had been updated that referrals were arriving and phone calls were being made. It was at least 4-5 hrs before we actually saw any reports of people receiving “the call.” We decided to delay my plans to go to Orlando ahead of Daddy Kong (Husband)and the boys so that we would be together when and if we received our news. We all stayed until Daddy Kong was done with work then drove to Orlando with Daddy Kong’s parents (who were preparing to return to Illinois after the Thanksgiving Holiday) so we would be able to visit with our friends visiting from PA. We knew that our agency waited until all of the information was verified until they contacted us and had been told to anticipate a 24 hr wait. We went to sleep in an Orlando hotel room knowing that we would receive details on our baby the following day.

Our phone call came in on Thursday, December 3rd, while we were sitting in the Downtown Disney McDonalds eating lunch, after attempting to eat breakfast but missing the 10:30AM breakfast cutoff. Since then, we have been in constant state of electronic chaos, juggling 3 allegedly smart phones, inboxes, blogs, forums, Yahoo Groups, 2 separate laptops, & Facebook with varying levels of internet access. After Daddy Kong's parents departed for the airport, we spent the afternoon and evening with our friends at their condo. Ironically, these were the friends who were with us in New England when we received notice that our adoption application had been accepted in September 2005. It seemed fitting that they be with us when we were finally able to open the document with Princess Peach’s picture, as we gathered poolside at their hotel.

Today, we juggled cold rain at the Magic Kingdom during our annual Family Disney Christmas trip, with intermittent visits to Old Key West Resort to pick up our FedEx Package with additional pictures and a form that we needed to FedEx back asap. We celebrated the return of the FedEx Package (and acknowledged that the boys left Magic Kingdom early) with a trip to Steak & Shake for sliders and milkshakes. Now, we are checked in, Aunt A & crew gave Princess Peach her first outfit, which says “wishes do come true,” and I am going unplugged for the rest of the night.

Still feeling technologically overwhelmed. There is so much to figure out, and work on, so many lists….We are grateful for all of the congratulations, prayers, and well wishes from all of you. We very much look forward to bring Princess Peach into our world and your world.

Our Baby Girl

We would like to introduce you to:
Princess Peach

She is described to be a moderate sleeper. She likes baths and music. (Yea!) She likes to be rocked to sleep...(Yea! Someone is rocking her to sleep!) She is active and sometimes obstinate. (trying not to be disturbed by that part, how obstinate can a 7 month old be, right?) We hope to travel to bring her home in 5-6 weeks. We love her already!

My Last Chance

Here it is. My last chance to say something profound and meaningful before we receive the details on our baby tomorrow. It’s not the first time I have tried to do this, but every time I sit down and begin to type, it becomes a narcissistic monologue on how hard this wait has been. That isn’t the story I want to tell. This isn’t supposed to be about us, and what we need from this baby, and how we need the wait to end so we can be a family of 5 and get on with life. But now, on the last night before we see her/his face, as I peruse the blogs of the others who have walked this journey alongside me, known to me or not….their stories mirror ours, and they are beautiful. Of course, as I read their stories, it takes me down memory lane… Daddy Kong and I decided early in our marriage that adoption was something we would be interested in pursuing. After our 2 boys were born and it was time to consider a third child, we decided to pursue adoption. We completed our application to our agency in August of 2005 (prior to Hurricane Katrina.) We were approved in September, and began the “paperchase”. At the time, based on current timelines, we anticipated being home with our baby between July and December 2006. We actually held our application several months in order to time the arrival of the baby between a family vacation and Christmas (of 2006). I find that really funny now. We had several weeks of interruption due to Hurricane Wilma, and at the time we thought a few weeks was an insignificant setback. (We now know that people who were matched several weeks before us have been home with their babies for six months already…) Our finalized paperwork was logged into China on March 29, 2006. During this time, we have watched the SARS scare, the crazy winter storms, the earthquakes, the Olympics, Swine Flu, and numerous typhoons, all while wondering if our child or adoption would be affected. Of course we now know that for the bulk of those incidents our baby would not have even been born yet. Then, there have been the adoption related setbacks, skipped months, and being on the cusp of “next” since August. While I ramble, the point is, we made it. We trusted God’s timing, and prayed for patience. We learned first hand what it means to not be in control. It may be a lifetime before we ever truly understand why willing parents wait while orphans sleep alone, but after 4+ years, we are prepared. Our hearts have been opened, and our arms are ready… now if only we could figure out where we will be going, what size clothes we need, what age toys to purchase, and what color paint we need…