I pasted my journal entries into this one posting, to give you a run down on our process. It was tedious but worth all of the time!
Feb 26, 2005: Informational Meeting with AAC Adoption Agency. Prayed and decided that this would be the right agency for us.
Mar 8, 2005: Mailed off Preliminary Application to AAC.
Mar 10, 2005: Accepted by AAC to start the adoption process.
Mar 11, 2005: I-600A Application sent off. This is the application sent to the Department of Immigration for our adopted child. It takes several months for this application to be processed by the US government.
Mar 14, 2005: Formal Application for adoption mailed to AAC. Formal Application consisted of autobiographies, pictures of ourselves, FEES, a letter of intent to adopt. Also mailed FEES for Federal background checks, fingerprint checks, and Home Study.
Mar 17, 2005: Mailed passports off to get renewed for next year's visas to China.
Mar 25, 2005: Mailed FEES for Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates. Went to get medical physicals and blood work that had to be notarized. Also met with AAC's director who gave us the low down on what to expect during the long paper pregnancy.
Apr 5, 2005: Home Study #1: met with our social worker, Jan, who just made us laugh and laugh. She was humorous and light-hearted. Many people are nervous about the home study (stereotyped as a mean social worker lurking into your closets to find cobwebs as proof that you can't be a very good parent if you have cobwebs in your closets).
Apr 9, 2005: Requested and mailed off notarized letters of Employment from our employers. Proves we can make money to support another mouth to feed.
Apr 13, 2005: Mailed FEES for local police clearance reports. Proves we aren't criminals
Apr 14, 2005: Home Study #2. Our social worker asked Lisa about her life. We just laughed and laughed about Lisa's childhood. It was a good time reminiscing about parents who love and brothers who protected.
Apr 20, 2005: Home Study #3. Our social worker talked with Paxton about his life. Paxton was grateful for his family who loved him so much. More laughter. She made the home study so fun! Thank you, Jan!!!!
Apr 26, 2005: Mailed off our Dossier (all of that paperwork) to AAC to finish processing before mailing off to China.
May 18, 2005: Redid Paxton's letter of employment because it was notarized by the federal government and HAD to be notarized by the state only. Red Tape....lots of Red Tape
Jun 20, 2005: Received the infamous I-171H (document that allows US parents to adopt internationally). It's the formal reply to the I-600A that we mailed on Mar 11. Many prospective adoptive parents sit by the mailbox waiting for this piece of paper that give them permission to adopt. Without it, you cannot adopt a child. Lisa sat by the window everyday, waiting for the mailman to deliver this paper. She had given up hope to ever getting it, and the next day, it came.
July 14, 2005: DTC or (Dossier mailed TO China). This famous day is when adoptive parents start to count down the wait for their child. "It's been ....months since DTC"
July 29, 2005: LID or (Log in Date). This is the day that China officially recognizes that our paperwork is in their system. This is the real countdown day
Sep 9, 2005: Parenting Seminar. We learned how to be parents in two days! It contained practical things like: "they will cry", "don't use baby powder", etc.
Nov 9, 2005: Travel Meeting with AAC. At this meeting, we heard all the wonderful horror stories of traveling to China. We just sat back and laughed!!! If they only knew...
Jan 4,2006: We get the referral of Hope Hong Qi Mellinger, waiting for us in Hunan Province. This is the province that Lisa's mother was born...very spicy personalities!!! Lisa was home that day, on-call with the hospital so she was expecting to be called in to work any minute. Lisa was on the phone, waiting to talk with customer service for Brother printers and was getting impatient when she gets a call waiting signal (oh no! It's probably the hospital)
Lisa: Hello (leery that it's the hospital wanting her to come in to work)
Morgan: Lisa!!! Hi! This is Morgan from AAC
Lisa: Hi, Morgan, How are you? (totally not expecting any news)
Morgan: Well, what would you like this year?
Lisa: You know! A baby, of course!
Morgan: Well....do you want her now?
Lisa: What??? What??? What do you mean "her"? (feeling numb all over) What?? What??
Morgan: Congratulations! You're a mother.
After getting all of the news, Lisa calls Paxton at work
Paxton: Well, did you get the call from the hospital to go work
Lisa: I did get a call, but not from the hospital
Paxton: (silence)...Whaaaah?
Lisa: We have a baby!!!
tears all around
Jan 4-6, 2006: No sleep....mind going a gazillion miles per hour. We are officially going through an emotional labor until we have Hope in our arms. It's surreal to think that across this big globe called Earth, your child is waiting to be placed into your arms. We look at her picture millions of times and realize that this human being is somewhere out there...
Jan 5, 2006: Paxton and Lisa receive the official documents from AAC Adoption Agency which asks them, "Do you agree to adopt this girl?" After one/billionth of a second, both prospective parents say, "Yep!!!" We sign away our lives to welcome this girl into their lives who will change them forever. We package up our passports, visa applications, more FEES, and the signed "YES" documents into a FedEx envelope and rush it off to the agency.
Jan 6, 2006: Lisa makes a care package to send to Hope's Foster Home. She spends hours on this care package, as she writes out a letter in Chinese to the director to read, and she prints out a few pictures of the Mellinger life here and labels each picture in Chinese. The Chinese letter took two hours to write. Not bad, except it looks like a four year old wrote it.
Jan 10, 2006: Two wonderful friends tell Lisa that they want to throw some baby showers. One will be a day time shower for the women only. Another shower will be a couples shower. Men invited!! Lisa runs to Target and Babies-R-Us, and wonders why one little baby needs soooo much stuff. I think our wedding registry list was less than half of what the baby registry list was. Lisa was majorly lost in the diaper section...still is! If anyone wants to give advice about diapers, feel free!!!
Jan 11,2006: Called AAC Adoption Agency and talked with Morgan. We are now waiting for a Travel Approval (TA) from the China Government, and this could take anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks. According to our calculations, we will probably travel to China anywhere from late February to early March. Since our wedding anniversary is February 25th, we'd like to be in China with Hope in our arms by then....let's pray for just that!!!!
Jan 17, 2006: Our agency calls and tells us that the Hunan orphanage received our care package. That only took 11 days...not bad. Now, Hope will have an outfit and a stuffed animal from some strangers in America that will soon be her parents!
Jan 18, 2006: We are given an update on Hope's vital stats as of today, almost 1 year old:
Weight: 24.2 pounds, 29.5 inches
Has Three teeth, eats and sleeps well. chubby and smart and of course, PRETTY
Jan 21, 2006: The Mellinger's former small group hosts a couples baby shower with brunch yummies. Fresh flowers, delicious food, lots of laughter, and lots of love fill the friends' home. We get lots of practical gifts for Hope who will use everything given to her. We felt so utterly loved. Thanks to all the wonderful friends who love us so.
Jan 25, 2006: Lisa is working in the ER, when her cell phone buzzes. It's Morgan from AAC. The conversation goes like this
Morgan: Ni Hao (hello), so this is Morgan....guess what?
Lisa: What? What? What?
Morgan: We got your Travel Approval!!! Do you want to go to China?
Lisa: (long scream as two patients tug at her arm wanting her attention) Can we go tomorrow?
Morgan: ha ha! No, your visas aren't ready yet, but we will find the earliest trip for you to go, OK?
The rest of Lisa's ER shift is shot, and her patients have to deal with a cloud 9 nurse. Paxton and Lisa try to fit their schedules to fly on Feb 8th. We cancel a baby shower, Paxton cancels his trip to Washington DC, we start looking for flights to China.
Jan 26, 2006: Lisa gets another call while working in the ER. We are NOT able to fly out on the 8th because the US consulate in China can't give us that early of an appointment. We are a little bummed, but we are told we can fly on February 15, 2006. The baby shower is BACK ON, and Paxton will still have to go to Washington DC.
No more sleep for us for a few days...we are set to go to China in three weeks!!!!!
Incidentally, today is Hope's 1st birthday, and we know that the orphanage director and Hope's foster family will celebrate this momentous occasion with her. The 1st birthday is so important in China, and I cry, knowing that we can't be there to hold her and shower blessings and happiness on her life. We will have time to catch up...yes we will.
Jan 27, 2006: We buy our tickets to China via Northwest Airlines. It looks like we'll have a nine hour layover in Minneapolis on the WAY BACK!!!! So, let's pray that Hope won't go crazy in the airport for that long. Pray that the parents won't go crazy, either!!
Jan 28, 2006: We celebrate Chinese New Year with friends. We make Jiao Zi (dumplings) filled with ground pork, ground beef, and shrimp. Yum!!!
Feb 9, 2006: Second baby shower. Hope got a lot of cutsie girlie clothes. They are all hanging in her closet, just waiting for her to put them on. Lisa took lots of pictures with the balloons and all of the women that showed up to shower blessings on this child.
Feb 10,2006: Paxton and Lisa make the final shopping rounds to Babies-R-Us, Walmart, BX, Sears to round out the nursery. We had to discuss what size diapers to get for Hope. We still don't know. Let's hope that when we get to China, someone can help us when they look at how chunky our little girl is. We buy 100's of baby wipes, lots of medicines. Lots and lots of stuff for a little human coming into our lives.
Feb 13, 2006: Paxton decided to do a preliminary packing job to see if everything we've bought will fit. Sure enough, after using "Packmates", we were able to get everything into our two suitcases plus two back packs. Even all of the multivitamins (4 dozen) and the hats and mittens that we're giving to the orphanage, all fit into the two suitcases!!! Yeah. Yes, we waited until 2 days before leaving to pack, and it was all right. We still have time to spare if we needed to go buy something we'd forgotten. I guess for us, packing doesn't really sooth our anxious hearts. 60% of our luggage will go to the orphanage. The rest is our stuff.
Feb 14, 2006: The Lord goes before us, we are certain of that. Thank you, Lord, for giving us peace and joy for this journey ahead. We celebrate our last Valentine's Day as two. Soon, we'll have three. This is such a wonderful moment in our lives. We celebrate the LIFE that God has given us through Jesus Christ, and the life in Hope that He's let us hold onto on earth.
Paxton came home from work and brought a nice heart shaped pizza. Lisa wrote Paxton a nice poem, reminding him that this is the last Valentine's Day as just a couple. Soon, we'll be three.
We realize that the first few days of receiving Hope will be tough. We expect her to cry and grieve and mourn the loss of the one family she's known all of her life. We also expect Hope to bond at first to Paxton...it's been known that orphans from this area like the fathers first...who knows. This will give Lisa a chance to video record everything around them!!! ha ha!
