We have seen rainbows literally EVERY time there was a major goal accomplished or something happened with our adoption in 2019 and the trend is continuing into 2002. I can literally count on one hand the rainbows I’ve seen in my life, but in 2019, I’ve seen more than I can count, all coinciding with a big adoption milestone for us. The week we got matched with our little girl in January, we saw 8 of them. And now, we’ve been praying for updated photos and a video of her so we could see her personality and guess what, we saw a rainbow this week. Sure enough, we got an update.
We received THREE videos yesterday of our little girl and we are beyond thrilled. Many families do not receive videos, just photos and medical documents. But we received updated videos, photos, measurements and answers to some questions we had asked. China stipulates that adoption agencies only ask for updates once every 9 months, so this will be our only set of updates on her, most likely. It was so sweet to see her little face, get to hear her voice and experience a little bit of her personality yesterday. I got very emotional thinking about all the kids and how heartbreaking it is to think of children feeling unwanted or unloved. Having a family is something I’ve just taken for granted, and to those kids, it’s a true luxury.
So the questions of the hour… what’s next and when do we get to meet her?
That is a tough question to answer because of the Coronavirus Situation. The virus still hasn’t reached it’s “peak”, according to experts. They don’t expect it to peak until mid-to late February. Travel is currently at a stand-still for most circumstances, including adoption. So we can’t really say for sure what will happen with the timing of getting to travel to China and get our little lady. If it weren’t for the virus, we were estimating to travel in May of this year – which still might be a possibility, we just do not know. Also, our daughter’s city is approximately 12 hours from Wuhan, where the virus is at it’s strongest, which is good news. She’s not currently in any imminent danger. We are told that China is doing everything within it’s power to safeguard it’s children and social workers/teachers. The other good news within this virus situation is that China continues to process adoption paperwork, none of that is on hold. So our paperwork/processing is proceeding like normal at this time. As a side note, our adoption agency uploaded videos and requests for masks and other supplies to be sent to Wuhan to help protect the kids and workers. They are out of supplies and need help. Click HERE to donate a few dollars and provide some safety equipment for these kids.
What we are waiting for now is China to approve our dossier and our matched little girl. They have to translate the documents we sent, which can take some time – anywhere from 1-3 months for this step. When it’s approved, they’ll send a letter of acceptance to our adoption agency. From there, we start applying to our own government here in the USA to approve our matched daughter and allow her to travel here. When that is all complete, we will be issued a travel approval, and begin to plan our trip to pick her up.
What we are doing to stay busy… besides the usual workload, we are starting to create a lovely bedroom space for her in our homes. We’ve got some plans for the Elkhart house bedroom and I’m going to attempt some wallpaper. Yikes. Wish me luck. We also get to create a book to be sent to her at the orphanage. It will have pictures of us, our dog and our home! We are also allowed to send her a letter once a month if we want to. I’m planning to write that and send with the photo book but boy am I nervous about what to write to a 5.5 yr old!
Anyway, that’s all we currently know and where we are at. Lots of prayers for the people of Wuhan and the coronavirus. We are also praying for protection for the rest of the Chinese people (and the world) and that the virus will peak soon so people can go get their kiddos!