February Update

Well another slow month is predicted. The rumor is moving only 1-4 days. Once again that puts us back another month. Now looking toward May 2010 for referral. The agencies are optimistic it will speed up but I just do not think it will be for a few months as March 2006 is a large month of families logged in to adopt healthy girls. Hopefully we can get to moving 7 days a month or more to keep it from becoming longer once again. I can only hope and pray we will not continue to add time to the wait as it has become such the norm.....It is what it is and we wait and live our lives.
Happy Spring!
Linette

January update

Well it appears it is a teeny tiny referral batch of moving only 2 days. That dashes the hope for things speeding up in 2009. However the month of March is the largest month of login dates for 2009 so we knew it would probably creep along. Bummer it is not moving faster. We are still on track for 2010 April referral but it has to speed back up to moving 6-10 days a month or we are set back again. It just breaks my heart this continues to be so long and here we are another year and so much time before our daughter actually arrives. But once again we are blessed. We have eachother, wonderful friends and family, a home, jobs and our health. This month has been eventful with a trip to Amish Country to a B&B wooded cabin for R&R. Boy the simple life that the Amish live is so much more peaceful. It was extremely cold but so good to get away. And I lost a dear friend Sharon to Cancer this past week and I was so honored to be her friend and it was such a blessing to celebrate her life at her funeral as sad as it was. I believe we are all here for a purpose and we do not always understand why some have to leave us so qucikly. Sharon I know you are up in heaven blessing others as you blessed me. I am thankful you were my friend and I loved you. Until our next update.....it will be interesting the Chinese New Year begins and the CCAA is closed for 2 weeks.

Late December Update!!!! OH MY STARS MORE REFERRALS THIS MONTH! Christmas 2008!

Woohoo! Another batch of referrals came this month! Maybe they are going to speed up! What a great belated Christmas Present! It moved 5 more days yesterday! They are through February 2006! Only 3 1/2 months and they are to June 13 but could take a year and few months still. The Rumor Queen thinks they are moving on referrals now to get two batches in before the Chinese New Year January 26. The CCAA closes for 1-2 weeks for the New Year Celebration so maybe another batch before the New Year in January! However, March is a large month so not going to get too excited about getting too far into March Referrals in January!

We had a blessed Christmas....action packed and we are so thankful as God reveals His goodness in our lives. We had a house full of The Thornbury's Christmas eve and a fun time was had by all and a fun filled white elephant gifting was the highlight. Then Mike and I were able to attend the Christian Church for their 11pm Christmas eve service with a nice drama and music celebrating Christ and our friend Scott Moening sang the beautiful song "Mary Did You Know?" The song really touched my heart as our baby will be born this year and the wait will someday come to an end with a beautiful baby girl who has ready been born in our hearts with so much love. I can't wait to have Jailyn here to experience her first Christmas. It was a special night. We had our whole immediate family in town. Scott made it home for the holidays before all the snow storms hit Seattle and just celebrated his 25 birthday on Dec 18. He left Dec 26 for the Dominican Republic with his Navy buddies for a vacation. Katie and Billy celebrated their second Christmas together dating and they seem as happy as ever and busy with lots of family and friend holiday celebrations. Billy's folks were in this week to celebrate with them. We celebrated our family's Christmas on Christmas morning with Mike's Blt's at 10am, gifts and celebrating with Katie, Scott, Billy and Mike's dad. Then the afternoon brought the Comley Christmas lunch and presents with my family. My neice and nephews are sure growing up fast and we all had a great time together as family.

We are blessed and look forward to an awesome 2009 and for God to reveal His will for our lives as we continue to see His plan unfold as we prepare for Jailyn to join our family. It will be God's perfect timing for us. It appears it is never soon enough and God is never early so we wait for His perfect will and continue to celebrate the blessings in our lives. 2009 will bring a trip to Amish country in January at a cabin at a Bed and Breakfast, a trip to Grand Caymen we won a time share trip from Mike's work in March or May, running the Flying Pig Marathon as a 4 person relay in May (Getting in Shape and running as TEAM Thornbury with Katie, Mike, Ronny (Mike's brother) and me running the last leg to run over the finish line, a trip to visit Scott in Washington State and a trip to Gatlinburg in the fall and then hopefully China sooner than later.

Happy New Year!

Orphanage fee officially raised...hopefully in 2009 this will speed the process

Just received word the adoption orphanage fee went from $3000 to $5100 which hopefully will mean a speed up in paperwork to get the babies paperwork ready. We knew increased fees would be inevitable as so much time has passed. If the money talks we could have a speed up and that is fine with me to have glimmer of hope to get our daughter sooner. So we will just have to see what will happen in 2009.

LID 06-13-2006 / December Update

Well another Christmas is fast approaching and once again a bittersweet time as we celebrate the holidays with family and friends. The house is decorated and the stockings are hung and Jailyn is in our hearts and her stocking is in the middle of our fireplace underneath baby Jesus in the nativity. The tears raced again down my face as I decorated the tree but God must have such plans for us as the wait continues with another Christmas without our daughter. I am thankful for my family and friends who are so dear to us and provide love and support. Hopefully only one more Christmas after this year without her. The website moved 6 days this month and we are up to February 23, 2006. And mathematically we still calculate a referral around April 2010. There are roomers that the China Adoption Affairs workers are being sent out to the SWI Social Welfare Institutes aka the orphanages to help in getting more babies paperwork ready. Also supposively the orphanage adoption fee is going up to hopefully speed up the process but once again who really knows. More money to adopt not a problem, bring it on China if it speeds things up! I spoke with our agency and they really can not tell us anything we do not already know. So we wait and believe all of this is part of a grand plan for our lives. I have changed the first song on our blog to Thankful. Because that is all we can be in this time of our lives as we are blessed and thankful for the blessings upon us daily.
I want to wish all our friends and family a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as the best is yet to come.
God Bless....love and prayers to you and your families this holiday season,

Reality is China is referring half the amount of kids it was in 2006

This information from the State Departments totally shows why there has been such a slow down since we started our journey in January of 2006....below is from the Chinaadopttalk blog posting.

State Department 2008 FY stats
November 18th, 2008
The State Department has released a pdf file showing worldwide stats for the 2008 fiscal year (October 1, 2007 – September 30, 2008).
According to the pdf, total adoptions from China on IR3 and IR4 visas were 3,902. There were 7 adoptions on an IH3 visa, which I believe means there were 7 adoptions that came under the Hague. At any rate, the pdf puts the total at 3,909, while their official stats page puts it at 3,254.
State Department numbers:1998 4,243 (per month, 354)1999 4,108 (per month, 342)2000 5,058 (per month, 422)2001 4,705 (per month, 392)2002 4,677 (per month, 389)2003 6,857 (per month, 571)2004 7,038 (per month, 587)2005 7,903 (per month, 659)2006 6,492 (per month, 541)2007 5,453 (per month, 454)2008 3,909 (per month, 326) or 3,254 (271 per month)
And, as has been pointed out before, back in 2005 special needs adoptions were less than 10% of the total, and they are currently over 30% of the total. So, NSN adoptions have dropped much more drastically than those numbers show.

I just hope and pray it does not slow down much more as there is optimism in the air that the website for Dec could potentially move 10 days as that will be a welcome site after only moving 2 this month!

Website only moved 2 days! AAGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So reality is we are now in for a longer wait as it has slowed down again and mathematically it puts us back another month for referral. I like to look at the situation half full but reality is sure difficult! Having one of those dissappointing days..........It makes me angry when it slows down as hope gets dashed once again. The wait continues and now more waiting with only a small batch of referrals this month and moving only 2 days. The dates they have referred up to is now February 17, 2006, and our date seems so far away of being June 13, 2006. It appears we are so close only being 4 months away but in reality it is at least a year and half now and I don't even want to fathom it being longer. God give me patience as this journey lingers on so slowly. I hate it as when we started this process with China the wait was supposed to be 1 year and is turning into 4 years with only 2 1/2 years down......... AAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Pray! Especially for me it is sooooooo hard..............As Mike says there is this hole in my life I just can not seem to get closed up full of loss and grief and it makes me cry for this journey to be so difficult to become a mom and not to know the joys of motherhood yet.
Pray for peace, patience, another holiday coming and understanding.......