Bring Abigail Home!

Still Waiting.....

2007-09-18T13:20:00.000-05:00

Here are my boys when we went to Nags Head in August. We went out to play miniature golf one night and they loved it. We stayed there for a week and shared a house with friends of ours and their two children, Haley and Ryan. It was so relaxing. All four of us enjoy the beach so much. I think it's so relaxing just to sit in a chair under an umbrella and listen to the sounds of the ocean. It refreshes my mind and body and it reminds me of just how beautiful this world really can be. The boys especially love rolling around in the surf and jumping the waves as they break on the beach.

On the adoption front, nothing much has changed. We are still waiting....and waiting.....and waiting some more. It doesn't really appear to us that China is speeding up with their referral process as of right now. We have just passed the one year mark for our "Dossier To China" date which was on September 15th and are getting very close to our "Log In Date" of October 13th. As a reminder, China goes by the dossier's log in date and matches the dossiers with a baby in the order they are logged into their computer system. At this time, they have most recently matched dossiers with babies through November 22, 2005. Yes....2005. Currently the wait for us looks like it is going to be AT THE VERY LEAST another 12 months.

Unfortunately, no one in the adoption community can accurately predict what is going to happen in the future. China knows what they are doing but they aren't about to tell anyone. So, the best we can do is try to wait very patiently which is very hard. Personally, I think we will be very blessed to have Abigail home by Christmas of 2008. I tend to believe that we will be travelling to China in Spring of 2009. It's very hard to think about that date, however, because I honestly believed when we started this process that we would have our baby by now. It's very disappointing but I have to hold on to the fact that we believe God was calling us to adopt from China and that He has not changed that calling. In the meantime, we busy ourselves with our boys and their activities and try to put the adoption to the backs of our minds. That seems to be working for the most part right now.

I hope everyone is doing well and I will try to post again soon!!!! God bless!

Welcome Home, Joanna!

2007-07-06T10:40:00.001-05:00

This is my newest niece, Joanna. Isn't she sweet!?! My sister, Debra, adopted her from China and just brought her home in mid May. She is the cutest little thing and so very sweet! She is a shy little girl but seems to be adapting very well to her new life and family in the United States. She has a "special need" in that her right eyeball never formed when she was in the womb. However, the doctors here in the US say that they can implant an artificial eye for cosmetic reasons. Apparently, they will be able to design the eye to match her left eye very closely, too. She is still holding on to some of her Chinese language. When she first came home from China, she would just chatter away in Chinese and then giggle! So cute! She is finally starting to speak English and will say entire sentences. We have fallen in love with her and are so happy to have her as a part of our family. Abigail will have one more member of her family that will look like she does which will be a neat thing for her to have when she gets old enough to realize that she doesn't look like her mommy and daddy.

Here's my nephew, Kyle. He is also Chinese but was born here in America. My sister adopted him as her third child. He was adopted when he was just a baby. He is very loving and very boisterous. He will be 3 in August. So, my extended family will have three Chinese babies in it.....if only we could bring our Abigail home!!!!!

A New Year.......A Longer Wait!

2007-02-03T12:44:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! It's been so long since I posted and a lot has happened in that time. Our dossier was completed in September. We received word that our official "Dossier To China" date was September 15, 2006. In October, we received word that our dossier was officially logged into their computer system on October 13, 2006; our "LID". Currently, the wait time from "LID" to "referral" is around 15 months. The term "referral" is when we will receive pictures and detailed information about our daughter. As of today, we have a little less than 12 months to wait. This could, however, change over the next year and either speed up or slow down even more. We are hoping it will speed up, of course!

I have heard people compare the finances involved in adoption to those of conceiving and giving birth to a baby and wonder why they should be expected to "give money" to those adopting. First of all, I must say that we don't expect anyone to "give us money". Secondly, I must point out that when a woman conceives and gives birth to a baby, her health insurance will cover most of the expenses. When a couple decides to adopt a baby, there is no insurance that will help cover the costs. When I gave birth to both of my boys, I was able to take maternity leave from work and still get paid while I was out to facilitate the bonding and attachment process with my infants. When we bring Abigail home, I will use every day of vacation available to me and then end up having to use the Family Medical Leave Act in order to facilitate the bonding and attachment process with Abigail. With FMLA time off, we will receive no financial compensation during the time I miss from work.

You are probably asking yourself, "Why is she talking about this?" I have decided to bring this up because I know that some of the people in our lives have adamantly stated that they think we should be able to afford this on our own or we shouldn't do it. Let me say first and foremost that we don't think that anyone should feel obligated to do anything at all for us where this adoption is concerned. God wants this for our family and when He wants something, it will be done no matter what opposition we face on this earth. We are confident in this fact alone.

With that being said, we also feel that the majority of people who care about us and share our joy in this process will want to support us; whether it be with kind words of encouragement, prayers (the most important thing), or , yes, financially. With the announcement of our adoption plans around Christmas of 2005, we received a card with a check in it from one of our friends who is also a member of our church, unprompted. Her comment when we thanked her was, "I was just doing what God told me to do." Talk about confirmation! We have received random cards in the mail from various family members over the past year with checks in them in support of our adoption. We are EXTREMELY grateful to this and we cannot say thank you enough. Last year at our Craft Day, we raised over $300 with just a handful of mainly friends, my mother, and my mother-in-law and niece in attendance! Every cent of what has been given to us has either been used over the past year to cover the expenses of the adoption or put into a savings account that we have opened in Abigail's name to help cover the next wave of expenses that will come our way later this year. We have had questions recently from some of the people in attendance at last year's Craft Day of when we are going to do it again and so we have another one planned for February 24th.

Please know that Todd and I love you all and greatly appreciate any and everything you all do for us. Your support definitely does not go unnoticed.

2006-08-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

Happy August!

2006-08-09T08:17:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! Carson finished up his swim lessons without a tear! There were quite a few nights during the two weeks that seemed like pure torture for both of us, but he finally turned the corner with only 3 lessons to go. He even mustered up enough courage to jump off the diving board on his own, of course, with his instructor there to catch him. He was so proud of himself! Brandon seems to have become quite the American Idol fan this year. He was very impressed with Taylor, the winner, and picked him out from the very beginning to win the whole thing. He is very defensive over his beloved American Idol and would even get into "arguements" with his Nana over who is better, Elliott or Taylor. It was very cute. Taylor's fans took on the name of Soul Patrol and Brandon had to have a shirt with that printed on it. I took a picture of Brandon and Carson, who also loves Taylor (even though I believe it's only because his "brudder" does), in their Soul Patrol shirts and I will try to post it later today.

Anyway, on to the adoption subject. Our SW (social worker) called us yesterday and, even though we have not gotten official preapproval from China, she seems to believe that everything is going to go as planned. She therefore is going to send our dossier on to the federal level this week to be "sealed", as this has already been done on the state level. This is apparently a very tedious process in itself as many at the federal level of government have to sign off on our paperwork and will take about four weeks to complete. At the end of the four weeks, we hope to have our preapproval from China along with our passports in order to send our dossier on to China. We are working towards a DTC (Dossier To China) date of September 15th. Then, the our work will be done and the real waiting will begin.

Please pray for us that all will go smoothly and we will obtain positive preapproval from China. I will post another update as soon as I hear something from our SW. Have a great week!

Update!

2006-07-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

Wow! What a busy couple of months it has been. Summer is so much fun! Brandon is playing T-Ball for the first time and he is really enjoying it. I think Todd is enjoying it every bit as much as Brandon is! Carson turned 3 in May and he is finally old enough to take swim lessons. He is taking them at the Community Center in Hopewell and I don't really think he is too happy about it. He cries and tries to cling to the instructor every time it's his turn to be in the water but he continues to go back every day without much fuss. He is my little trooper!

On the adoption topic, we have had yet another glitch in the process. The agency we are using for the China leg of our adoption lost our paperwork last month. They were supposed to have sent it out to China last month for preapproval due to my cancer history and if they had done it when they were supposed to, we would know by now whether or not China will make us wait another couple of years to adopt from their country. They were, as you can imagine, VERY apologetic for the mistake and vowed to have the documents translated into Chinese and sent to China yesterday. We should know China's verdict in about 2-3 weeks. So, PLEASE keep praying for us!

While we are discussing prayer, there is a baby in China right now who we are feeling led to pray for. Her name is Lin. She was left behind by a family recently who changed their mind about adopting her once they got to China. We don't know the full story, obviously, but what we do know is that this baby needs prayer. She is sick, though not severely by US medical standards, and they have pledged to take care of her until she is healthy and then put her back in the "adoption pool" at a later time, but we still feel led to pray for her. I am receiving periodic updates on her and I will post any new information I get about her here.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued prayers!

Call To Prayer!

2006-05-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

We have had a bump in the road to Abigail. Our social worker called me earlier this week stating what I had heard as a rumor on the internet as being fact. China is thinking about creating a rule that a person must be 3 to 5 years in remission in order to adopt from their country. Needless to say, I was very upset. Our social worker, Lisa, had a plan for us. She asked us to get a letter from my oncologist with a laundry list of statements in it and they would translate it, send it to China, and get preapproval for us to adopt. She didn't seem to think it would be a problem but we have an invisible "timeline" that we need to beat because noone seems to know when this rule will come into effect. She also said that once we are officially in the process with Harrah's (the agency that will be handling the China part of our adoption), we will be grandfathered in should China make the rule after we are in with Harrah's. PLEASE PRAY! I am now experiencing a bit of hesitancy on the part of my oncologist and cannot get his office staff to give me a truthful answer as to when the letter will be ready. Please pray that my oncologist will get this letter done ASAP so that we can get it to China. Also, please pray that China will NOT deny us our adoption! We are praying hard ourselves and we know that with your help, God will hear our petition and cause the hearts of China's officials to be softened toward us and give us the daughter that we are in love with already. Thank you for reading and for keeping us in your prayers. God bless.

Home Study Is FINISHED!!

2006-05-02T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hello friends!! I know it's been a while since I updated the blog. Life seems to go too fast! We had our third and final home study visit with our social worker on Friday, the 28th and all seems to be going well. She is waiting for the last couple of documents from us so she can write up our home study report and get that behind us and we are now starting on our "China paperwork"...also called our "dossier". It seems like a mountain of paperwork and I am really feeling the pressure right now to get it done. I know that it will all be worth it in the end and I keep reminding myself of the end result of our labors. However, it still doesn't really seem "real" yet. Sometimes I think about travelling to China and the day that we will finally meet Abigail face-to-face and it just seems like a dream. I have a hard time realizing that it is a dream that will eventually come true for us. The road is long but God is faithful and I know it will happen in His timing, not ours. I will try to post more when I get another chance. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin tackling this mountain of paperwork!! Thank you!

Quick Update!

2006-01-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

I am so excited! I talked with our social worker last week and we have set up our first home study appointment for February 16th. I also registered us for our first workshop on February 2nd. We are both excited about finally beginning our journey! Also, our first fundraiser was a huge success!! Hugs and kisses to everyone who came!!! We had so much fun! Most of the ladies who came worked on their scrapbooks but one brought her knitting and worked on that. We had good conversation, a lot of laughs, and ate a lot of good food! (Thanks Lorene for the eclair cake!! Yummy!!) My niece, Kelly Anne, worked on her very first scrapbook and she outdid all of us "scrapbook veterans". She completed....are you ready for this......NINETEEN PAGES! (They were 12x12 size pages, too!) What a record! She has set the bar very high for the next craft day in March!! I felt like I needed to present her with a prize or something!! Needless to say, I was very proud of her! I will give another update soon!! Goodnight!!

We Have Been Assigned A Social Worker!!

2006-01-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

Our agency called us Monday afternoon to let us know that they have assigned us a social worker who will be calling us in a few days to set up our first home study appointment!!! I am SO EXCITED!! The agency told us in orientation to expect a wait of a week to two weeks before being assigned a social worker once our application was received. We just mailed in our application last Tuesday, the 10th, and we heard from them in less than a week! I'll just take that as another sign that we are walking down the right path. I will post again as soon as we schedule our first appointment!! Yay!!

My newest idea!

2006-01-15T13:53:00.000-05:00

Hello! I just wanted to let everyone know my newest idea to raise funds for our adoption. I just signed up to sell Avon. It's a fun way for me to make a little extra money to contribute towards our Abby Fund. If you are interested, please email me at Matisse1124@hotmail.com and I will get the most recent book to you for you to look through. Or, you could go to their website at www.avon.com, look around at the products, and email me at the above address if you would like to order something. I will place my first order this Wednesday (the 18th) night and I do not collect any money until the product comes in. I appreciate you visiting our site! God bless!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. To follow up on the last post, Kelly did make it home just in time for Christmas...such an answer to prayer! Brandon and Carson seemed to really enjoy themselves. Brandon was so excited that he couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. It was 2:30 a.m. when we finally decided to break out the Benadryl. LOL! Poor little guy. I thought he would sleep at least until 8 or 8:30. Nope! He was up and crawling into our bed at 7:40 a.m. on Christmas morning. He was so excited that he couldn't stand himself any longer. He ended up confessing that he had snuck downstairs and peeked into the living room and saw one of his gifts. About two weeks before Christmas, while watching the Polar Express DVD, he proclaimed that he wanted the Polar Express train and he was going to ask Santa for it. That became the one gift that he consistently asked for. So, as you may be able to guess, "Santa" was able to find it on ebay after calling all local stores that sell Lionel trains only to find them sold out. Thank goodness! I would've been heartbroken for him if Santa had not found it. It was such a "big gift" that Santa decided to give it to both Brandon and Carson but I don't think Brandon minds sharing it with his baby brother. It's a really neat train, too. It has a headlight, a whistle, and a smokestack that has real smoke puffing out of it! They were so excited on Christmas morning!

I wanted to take a couple of paragraphs and answer some questions that we have been receiving from friends and family about our adoption. The whole process will take us about 18 to 20 mos to complete. Babies from China are typically around 10 to 13 mos in age when they are brought home, so Abigail won't be an infant but will still be considered a baby. I have had questions asked about the adoption process so I thought I would try to briefly explain it here. The first thing to do is to decide on an adoption agency and apply to their China program. We have just mailed in our application and are currently waiting for a call from our assigned social worker so we can start the home study process. The home study will consist of three visits with our social worker, one in our home and two in her office. Apparently, each visit lasts about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. After we start our home study, it's my impression that we can start gathering documents for our "dossier". This is basically a packet of paperwork that is sent to China. It includes things such as intense background checks, Homeland Security approval, fingerprinting, and various other documents such as copies of our marriage certificate, deed to our house, etc. It is very time-consuming to complete the dossier as it will take us about 4 to 6 months to gather everything up. All of the paperwork also needs to be notarized and also needs to be "stamped" by the US Government.

After the dossier is complete, it is sent by our agency over to China for review (our Date To China or DTC for short). China will then enter all of our information into their central computer (our Log In Date or LID for short) and we will wait for review. When it is time, our dossier will go into review and China will go through the papers with a fine tooth comb and then approve us for adoption. We will then wait for our referral. Our file will then move to the "referral room" where we will be matched with our daughter. Apparently, China examines every little detail about your family and goes to great lengths to match up just the right baby with the right family. Once they match a baby to us, they will send all papers and pictures of her to our agency who will then contact us with the news of our referral. The referrals usually go out at the end of every month with the families being contacted by their agencies around the beginning of each month. They have currently completed referrals for those families whose LIDs (see above) were in April of 2005. So, the current wait time once your dossier is locked into their computer is about 9 months.

So, you can see why the process will take as long as it does. We know without a doubt that we are meant to bring our daughter home from China so that will make the waiting a little easier. Please feel free to leave any comments you wish to make here on the website. All you have to do is click on the word "comments" below any of my posts and this will take you to the page where you type in your comments. We would love to hear from all of you as we would like to know who is visiting the site!!! God bless!!!

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-23T10:03:00.000-05:00

Just a quick entry to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Here's to good health in 2006! I know that's what the entire Harrell family is praying for in the new year. We have had a lot of sickness in the family this year. From me....to Todd's step-father......and now Todd's niece, Kelly Anne. She has cystic fibrosis and is back in the hospital with an infection for the second time in two weeks. When you say your prayers at night, please remember her name and pray for a quick recovery for her. She is 10 years old and we are scared that she may not get out of the hospital by Christmas. Thank you.

GOD BLESS!!

The Harrell Family

2005-12-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

Brandon is now 5 years old and having a ball in Kindergarten! His last report card said that he is progressing well academically but would rather socialize with his friends than listen to his teacher during group time. He is so much like his mama!! Carson is now 2 1/2 years old and is a little stinker! He has tons of personality and makes us laugh all the time. Being a mama to them is so much fun and I can't wait to be a mama to a little girl!

Here He Goes!

2005-12-13T13:43:00.000-05:00

Here's Brandon getting baptized. He was so excited. When the pastor asked him if he wanted to go first, he immediately said, "yes". I was so excited that I cried!

Brandon's Baptism Day

2005-12-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

November 27th...Brandon gets baptized by immersion. Todd was able to be in the baptismal with Brandon since he is a yolkfellow (or, a deacon in training). I know it was an honor for Todd to be able to participate and something that he will never forget.

We Have An Agency Picked Out!!

2005-12-05T19:59:00.000-05:00

Well, we went to our meeting at Coordinators 2 last Tuesday. It was very informative and we decided to use them for our adoption. We really liked the social worker who conducted the meeting. She was adopted as an infant and was a birth mother herself almost 25 years ago...having given her own son up for adoption. She was able to talk with us from both perspectives which was very interesting. There were about six other couples there, all either interested in adopting from the US or from China/Guatemala. Even after reading everything I have online, I learned a few new things myself. I know that Todd learned a lot, too. The next step for us is to submit our application. This includes basic information about us along with a list of references. We are now contacting those people we want to be references for us just to be sure it's okay with them. We are going to wait until after the first of the year to submit the application, however, because there is a $150 application fee (due when we submit the application) along with another $1800 for the home study fees and $1000 for what they call the post-placement supervision fees which will be due about 60 days following submitting our application. We need to be sure we will have that money when we need it before we submit an application. That's all the news from here! I hope this finds everyone well. And, thanks for visiting our site! God bless and have a Merry Christmas!

The Announcement Has Been Made!

2005-11-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

Well, Todd and I finally announced our news to our families and our church family. Everyone seems to be supportive and Tracey, Todd's sister, told me that she is excited for us. It really means a lot to us that everyone is okay with the idea of us going to China for our daughter. I already love her and I doubt she has even been born yet! We also had it announced in church Sunday (the same day Brandon got baptized by full immersion!) and everyone there also seems very supportive. The pastor jokingly announced that the "Harrell family is going to adopt TWO children from China"! Todd and I immediately said, "Just one!" Hee-Hee! Anyway, we are very excited and it seems that talking about the adoption seems to be rolling off of our tongues easier now. We are going to an informational meeting tomorrow night, November 29th, at Coordinators 2 in Richmond, after which we will make our final decision about which agency to use.

It's Just the Beginning

2005-11-21T19:30:00.000-05:00

It's only the beginning and Todd and I are already feeling a mixed bag of emotions. We are really excited but at the same time, scared to death. We want a daughter for our family and, after a lot of prayer and a lot of discussion, we have decided that God wants us to add a daughter to our family through adoption. I'm especially feeling pulled toward China and I am convinced that is where God wants us to go. (Although, I don't know how confident Todd is! LOL) We are starting to investigate agencies and I have emailed about a dozen so far with questions about my cancer history. To our surprise, we have actually received a wide variety of answers...from no waiting period to adopt after cancer to a waiting period of five years. Five years!!! I can't wait that long! We have found an agency in Richmond who will work with us and we are going to attend their informational meeting on November 29th. I am so excited!!

We do have other concerns, however. The total cost of the adoption process is going to be about $20,000. We have already come up with a few different ideas for fundraisers. Todd's company is also giving us $3,000 to assist in the adoption costs. It is an awful lot of money but we are faithful that God will provide and that in the end we will reap the rewards by holding our precious daughter in our arms.