Sunday, February 15, 2009

A few new pics from the beautiful week!









And I had to post this video....it's really of nothing, but Reagan just cracks me up when she runs. Here's a peek at her style....there's usually lots of twisting involved and her arm placement is quite high, as you'll see. :)


Saturday, February 7, 2009

Our LID!!!

No...that's not lid, like a top to something. It's our adoption Log In Date!!! We got word the other day that our dossier is officially registered in China and the date that occurred was January 14, 2009. This date helps us follow the progress of our dossier as it gets reviewed, translated, and eventually as we get matched with a child. Every month, our agency will email us with a list of dossier dates and where they are in the adoption process. Hopefully, this will help us estimate the timing of everything as we go through the process and somehow figure out how much longer we have to wait. Things are still moving slowly...but we are perhaps a little more optimistic now than before. I'll explain why...

With all the economic problems in the U.S., of course that is affecting the world economy. Lots of people think that China is the next big economic bubble to burst, although they have seen tremendous growth and development in the past few years. The recent prosperity has given way over there to lots of adoptions domestically....since their citizens have been able to afford to adopt, they have of course, taken priority over foreigners to get referrals for kids. If their economy in fact does see issues like we are seeing in this country, that in turn probably will mean more abandoned babies, fuller orphanages, more demand on the government to care for them, etc. Thus, if all that occurs, perhaps they will speed up the adoption of kiddos. I hate to say that we are hoping for this situation, because of course, we would love to see a situation in China in which there were no orphanages, where no children abandoned, etc. However, that is not the case, and so, we can only hope that it will expedite our little girl to us so that she can be rid of her days as an orphan and get on with having the love of a family, along with all her little Chinese sisters and brothers who await the same!

Of course, we will keep you up to date. There may not be much news to share for a while...but we'll let you know! We continue to covet your prayers in regards to this situation! Thanks!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Dampened Celebration

We were thrilled to go up to Fredericksburg yesterday to meet our beautiful new nephew, Anderson...born on 1/30 to my (Jennifer) younger sister, Kristen and her hubby, Nathan. He is a beautiful little guy....and so very little! Both Jonah and Reagan were well over 8 pounds, so Anderson with his little 6lb 11oz self seemed tiny to us! It will be exciting to have another little cousin for the kids.

Anyway, I guess there's nothing like a little baby to make you reflect on some things. While we were in the hospital and Rush was holding Anderson, he happened to mention that Rylie won't have it quite so good when she is born. It really got me thinking...and we talked a lot about it on the way home. There's so much excitement and celebration here when most people have babies.....tons of presents, visitors, prayers of thanks, feelings of being blessed beyond measure. What a great, overwhelming experience. But somewhere in China, sometime in the next few years, our daughter will be born...and we won't be there. There probably won't be a lot of celebration, or prayers of thanksgiving, or feelings of being blessed. Perhaps they will be replaced by feelings of fear, overwhelming responsibility that cannot be met, sadness and grief over the decision that must be made. Unfortunately, that happens every day. It really breaks our hearts in a bittersweet way. We know that without that situation, she cannot be ours...because it is only through another family's tragic situation that we benefit by gaining our little girl. We know this...we knew it from the get-go. But thinking of it so tangibly really gives us new perspective of what perseverance our daughter will have to start her life out with. There might not be much fanfare upon her arrival in China, but you can bet your life that when she is finally "born" into our family, we will have one heck of a celebration.