In an airplane over the sea

What's that? Can it be? Good news? We had forgotten what that sounded like. Forgotten how the words were formed and how to feel when someone gave you good news. But here we are with our senses awakening once again. How appropriate that it is Spring. The backstory: last week the message boards were alight with rumors, hearsay and conjecture. The insider information and clandestine intel being smuggled out of China was like a spy novel. Someone had heard that a package left China. Were our referrals in it? We didn't know. USAA didn't know. People speculated and hoped but then on Friday it was confirmed - we were not in that package. On top of that the next week, the first of May, was a national holiday in China so the CCAA office would be shut down for the entire week. More rumors - they might work over the weekend. Someone might come in on Monday to send out what got done.
Group 115, showing our togetherness and prowess at teasing information out of our agency, chose to divide and conquer. Different people were designated to call and find out information at different times during the day. Morning: no one knew. Mid-morning: a meeting was taking place. Subject: unknown. Noon: no new info. Then someone got through. The CCAA did work over the weekend. Supposedly they got through all referrals until Nov 1 '05 which would include us. And then the news - our referrals were on a plane. Our file had been matched with Molly. With our daughter. Only a privileged few in China knew who she was but she was there. A tiny photo of a little orphan girl sitting in the hold of a 747 over the pacific ocean, being hugged snugly inside our file and nestled between our own pictures, pictures of Mommy and Daddy.
Molly is on her way. At long last - progress. After wanting, wishing, hoping and dying inside every time a deadline passed us by, we have some good news. The package must make it to the U.S., be driven to USAA in Montery Park, be translated by the agency and then we will get a call to come pick up our file and see our daughter for the first time.
For now we are just getting used to the notion of having some good news for a change. For once I knew something before marie did. She was out running errands and when I told her about it she was driving home and had to pull off the road for a good cry. The first of many to come.
"Soon" has become foreign to us, let alone being able to finally say "any day now" we will see her. But it's true. Spring has sprung. Next post ought to be a good one!

new hand made

With extra time so generously provided by The People's Republic of China we were able to work on a few more hand made projects for Molly. Marie bought a bunch of plain white onesies and then a big bag of felt and we made our own designs rather than paying $25-30 for cute ones in Santa Monica. Eric is finishing his last one (a robot) but can you tell who designed what? We have a Dracula, Spaceship and a Bear or a cupcake, bunny, chick, ladybug and flower.

the best one

Eric is most proud of this onsie that he designed but Marie did the lettering. The front over the tummy says "Empty" and the back around the downstairs says "Full". It's funny 'cause it's true.

Our long delay continues . . .

We received our 1st call on Tuesday, March 27th, today is Sunday, April the 8th and we are still waiting for 2nd call. In the past 2nd call usually goes out to the families in a week, a few days or sometimes even later the same day. We received bad news on Friday ( not exactly Good Friday for us) that we will not receive our referral most likely until the end of April and this will push our travel time into June. There go my hopes of being with Molly on Mother's Day.

Looks like CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) only matched two days of dossiers since last month when they processed 11( then thought to be a record low). The LIDS (log in date) they processed were 10/25/05 and 10/26/05 we have a LID of 10/27/05. Only two days of LIDS being processed in a month is unheard of, so is the two year wait that we are creeping up on, not to mention that if we travel in June it will be four months since the last non-priority group with our agency has gone to China, usually a group goes every other month.

We'll be sure to keep you updated so check in on the blog to find out the latest news.

Oh well, if we have learned anything over the last few years it's how to accept disappointment, move on and do your best to keep the faith. So by next Easter we should be attending an Easter Egg hunt with Molly, right?