Middle Georgia...Cakes for a Cause!

Our dear friend Mrs. Linda has so graciously agreed to continue blessing everyone this summer with her amazing cakes!!! Take a look and place an order today...holidays, special days....any day! 

Attachment and Bonding

It's exciting to think about starting life with our family of six when we arrive back home. But we have been told and hear story after story about how DIFFERENT parenting is for adoptive children. Old discipline styles, tips, and tricks are not usually what this new member of the family will need. When the first weeks, months, and years of a life are not nurtured... it is truly unreal how far the reprucussions follow. Learning about this before hand is a great idea- and highly encouraged- but of course each child and situation is very different. 

Here are some articles that address the attachment and bonding issues that may or may not become a reality for us when we return. 

http://www.bbinternationaladoption.com/sites/default/files/ckfinder/files/Top10thingsnottoexpectpostadoption.pdf

 

Cut and paste these links into your browser:

http://empoweredtoconnect.org/transition-and-attachment/

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/support/articles/adoption

Maybe this will interest you...if not...it's helpful for me to have to reference in the future!💗

DTC...Dossier to China!!!

The day I've anxiously been waiting for is here!!! Our paperwork and documents are now in China!! This is a huge milestone in this adoption journey. We are very close to being able to receive files for potential children and we will hopefully get to find out soon what precious child God has for our family!!!

My heart and mind have been flooded lately with just the desire to know this child that is all the way across the world waiting for us. I've had the most real, vivid dreams about being in Chinese orphanages going through files looking for "our daughter". The wait is hard now...and I can only imagine how much harder waiting is once you've laid eyes on this precious soul. It's so exciting getting to see Gods story and heart played out throughout this journey...and to see His hand leading, providing, and pointing us to our child. 

We are really enjoying life as a family of five and want to soak in the beautiful season of life we are in now before this life changing transition comes in.  Our daily conversations are quickly being filled with "our adopted baby" this, and "our China baby" will do that. It's beautiful to watch the girls fall in love with a sister they only have dreamed about. It's amazing to watch them learn about Gods love for EVERYone...whether our neighbor next door....or the orphaned baby across the world in China. We are already flooding prayers upward asking God to prepare our bio girls' hearts to the life transitions that we will encounter once baby is home. 

Adoption is a foreign realm to do so many. It was to me -and still is foreign until I actually cross over into each new phase of it! The post adoption life is just as foreign...and I could probably point you in a million different places where there are entire blogs related to life after adoption. And maybe I will share some things to read soon- but we are obviously hoping for the best, but also bracing for hard. We hope our friends and family join us in understanding this completely unpredictable and foreign endeavor with us as we keep going on this journey.  

So now what? 

Here is a brief look at what the next month(s) will entail...

The dossier goes through review stages-

•         Registered or LID (log in date)                                                 The dossier has been logged in- usually 3-4 weeks after DTC 
•         In Process of Translating                               The dossier is in translation. 
•         In Process of Review                                      The dossier has been translated and is in review. 
•         To Be Matched                                                 The dossier has been reviewed and will transfer to the matching department. 
•         Matched                                                              The family’s dossier has been matched with the child’s file and the Letter Seeking Confirmation will be issued next. 
•         Seeking Confirmation                                    The Letter Seeking Confirmation has been issued. 

Our agency will update me as we move through these stages... And I can't wait to update the blog with each new step as well! Until next time...

I800a Approval!!!

I don't usually rush to the mailbox. But in the back of my mind I knew we had to be close to receiving our approval letter. So today when I felt the nudge to walk down our driveway and check- I did. And I almost overlooked our letter from homeland security! This was the final piece of our dossier that we had been waiting on to be able to send our documents to China. And it is here!!! I quickly scanned it, sent it to my agency, and she started our authentication process on it today! We are so close. Woohoo!!!! 

Our Video Story

Most likely we have never had the chance to sit down and truly share our hearts with you on why we are in this wild and beautiful adoption process. We encourage you to take a minute and let's pretend we have invited you into our crazy life to sit down,  have a cup of coffee and hear our story.

Video by Chris Olson