Where in the world is Olivia?

Olivia is from the Hunan province (similar to a state) of China (population of 71 million-7^th most populated province in China), which is located in the south central part of the country.  Girls from Hunan are known as “Spicy Girls.” They say this is due to the heavy use of chili peppers in their food, but I'm wondering…..  The Xiang River runs through the province, and the traditional crops from that area are rice and cotton.  The climate is sub-tropical with short, cool, damp winters, very hot and humid summers, and plenty of rainfall.  There is a professional sports team in Hunan, the Hunan Billows F.C. (soccer team). 

The capital of Hunan is Changsha (population 7 million), where we will probably travel to meet our little girl.  To give you a perspective, New York City’s population is around 8 million.  She is not from there, but most adoptions in China are finalized in the capital of the province from where the child comes.  We believe she currently resides in or near Chengnan, which is in Ningyuan County, a couple of hours away from Changsha.

We will also travel to Guangzhou, which is where the U.S. Consulate/Embassy is.  It is located very near Hong Kong, also in the south central part of China.  Guangzhou is where we will finalize everything on the American side of things and will be the last place we visit.  Guangzhou is the 3^rd largest Chinese city, population 14 million.

We cannot wait to travel to see the sights and sounds of Olivia’s birthplace.    I want to “live in the moment” while we are there and soak it all in.  My wish is to be able to tell her about it someday when she is old enough and hope to be able to go back one day so that she can see where she is from.

I’m desperately trying to do a better job of “living in the moment.”  I am horrible at this!  I’m always marking things off a “To Do List” and thinking ahead of what needs to be done.  I told Philip just the other day to keep me in check, and especially on our trip, to remind me to enjoy it.  After all, it is a once in a lifetime thing.  So, for the next few weeks at least, I’m going to try to “Live in the Moment.”  I want to cherish these last few weeks that we have together as a family of 3.  Our lives will never be the same.  I want to make sure that Ansley knows how much we love her and for her to enjoy these last few weeks of being an only child. 

Thanks for your interest and for your prayers.  We hope you have a great weekend!

Good golly, GUZ#!

Happy Friday!  I hope you have had a great week!  I’ve been thinking a lot about this blogging-thing and realize that this is NOT one of my talents.  I worked really hard at finding a “catchy” title for this one……hope you like it!  Don’t get too used to it though; I’m probably one-and-done in the “catchy” department.

I work for a company that has a million acronyms, but I will say that adoption has its fair share!  Between DTC’s, LID’s, LOA’s, LSC’s, SIM’s, NVC’s, TA’s, and now GUZ’s, the adoption lingo is pretty crazy.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we have been waiting on a letter from the NVC (here we go again with the acronyms) before we could move on to the next step.  Well, we have our letter and a GUZ #!!  Thanks to the wonderful internet, adoptive families who have been through this before blogging about it (Thank you!), and email, I was able to speed up the process of getting this letter just slightly.  Instead of waiting for this letter in the mail, I was able to get an email copy and not have to wait for the mail before filling out the next paperwork.  Score one for us!

There is a GUZ number (I have no idea what this stands for.) and an invoice number on this paperwork that you have to have before you can even open the webpage to apply for the DS-260.  The DS-260 is Olivia’s visa application, which she has to have to enter the U.S.  (For those wondering, the application was pretty intense and asked some pretty tough questions.)  This milestone is also significant because more importantly, it means that our paperwork has been cabled/emailed to the U.S. Consulate in China.  We are one step closer! 

Early next week, a representative from our adoption agency will take our paperwork to the US Consulate as well.  The Consular Officer will review our paperwork and advise if anything is out of line (Please pray that all is well.).  If the officer determines the child appears eligible to immigrate to the U.S. and that the information provided indicates that we have complied with all rules/regulations, he/she will notify the Chinese government by issuing an Article 5/17 letter (Art 5 in adoption lingo).  This will tell the Chinese government that “U.S. competent authorities have determined us to be eligible and suited to adopt, and that the child may enter and reside permanently in the U.S.; the U.S. Central Authority agrees that the adoption may proceed.”  This process should take 2 weeks.  The consulate only accepts this type of paperwork on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, so hopefully they can get there on Monday.  Then we move on to the next step!   

Once our rep picks up the Article 5 and delivers it to the Chinese Government's Adoption Authority (CCCWA), it will take approximately 2 weeks for them to review the paperwork and issue our TA (Travel Approval).  Once we have the TA, we can schedule our appointment with the US Consulate and will know our travel dates!  (and apply for our visas to enter China) From my estimation, we are about 6-8 weeks from travel.  Yikes – that means that I better get moving on some things!!  We still have a lot to do!

Well, thanks for reading!  I'll try to come up with another "catchy" title for my next post.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Jill

I-800 Approved!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am happy to report that we received our I-800 provisional approval letter in the mail today!  That means that we will be anxiously awaiting our letter from the National Visa Center, so that we can file for Olivia's visa!  (It typically takes about 2 weeks.)

If you are wondering what the letter says, the provisional approval states that our specific child qualifies as a Convention adoptee under law. It goes on to say that this approval as been given to the US Department of State, and that we may not obtain custody of her until the US has notified her country of origin that she is eligible for immigration.  (We had to send them the report from China stating that she was an orphan and some other medical items.)  Our names are on the form, as well as her Chinese name and birth date.  It's becoming a little more real now!  

I've been wondering all day today if they celebrate Valentine's Day in China, so what do you do when you want to know something these days?  You Google it, of course!  So, for all of you wondering….yes, they do celebrate Valentine's Day in China!  I wonder if they had a "party" at the orphanage…..???

I hope you all felt loved today.  Have a great weekend!

Jill

Fingerprints complete!

Hello everyone!

It's been over a month now since we got "the call."  In some ways, it seems like yesterday.  In others, it seems like a lifetime ago.  That's probably because every day I see the face of that little cutie waiting on us to come and get her.  I can't spend a lot of time dwelling on what she is doing or how she is doing, or that would consume most of my thoughts….all.day.long.  So, I just have to have faith that all is well.  I can't wait for her to be safe and sound here…..in our home….

We received our "Notice of Action" forms from the Department of Homeland Security about 2 weeks ago.  These are the letters we had to take with us to get fingerprinted.  (Fingerprints are only valid for 15 months, and ours expire on 2/20/14.)  Many people are able to walk-in early at their respective fingerprint offices, but not in Nashville.  In fact, I have read a few posts from folks who drove hours to Nashville and were turned away because they were they were there before their actual appointment.  So, we waited….I would say patiently, but I'm not a very patient person at this point.

In the meantime, I have been able to mark a few things off my list.  I have finished a little shopping.  When we go to China, we take a few gifts with us for the orphanage director, the registrar and notary, and some of the orphanage workers.  I have read not to stress out over the gifts, but it is hard not to!  Evidently, in Chinese culture, they don't open gifts in front of people, and it's possible that they may give them to others, so "not to worry."  But how in the world do you give something to someone who has cared for your daughter for the first two years of her life?  How do you give something to someone who is the  only "family" that the child has ever known?  You stress out about it; that's what you do!  And, do you know how hard it is to find things that aren't made in China?  Very.  After a lot of thought, research, and suggestions from others (Thank you!), I ended up with some unique things to the area, and I'm proud of what I bought.  

We had a slight scare with our paperwork last week that just about sent me into orbit.  We received a pink "Request for Evidence" letter from the US government.  These RFE's are never a good thing.  This pink letter stated that we needed to provide them with an updated Home Study.  The reason why this was so exasperating is because an updated Home Study would take a few weeks/months to update, is expensive, and ours should still be valid!  All we needed was to be re-fingerprinted!!  Obviously, I had to get this straightened out. All of this paperwork we have done over the years is housed somewhere and is assigned to an officer, who approves/declines it, and I was actually able to obtain the information of this officer without too much investigation.   So, I called our "officer" in Lee's Summit, MO.  She explained that they requested a Home Study because of a Supplement 3 application we filed with our paperwork (as we were told to do so by our adoption agency).  Evidently, you don't have to file this form if you just need to be re-fingerprinted.  So, I kindly asked if we could withdraw the application, and she said, "Yes."  I followed that question up with something like, "If we withdraw this application, will any part of the particular adoption of said child be affected?"  She said, "No, just send me an email asking to withdraw the so-and-so, and that is all I need."  I asked her again a different way just.to.make.sure, and she came back with the same answer.  Whew!  I was so relieved.  I sent the email right away, stating the above again, so that I had it in writing, and she responded that it was withdrawn and that as soon as we were re-fingerprinted, to let her know, and she would approve our I-800!!  I am a big believer in having everything in writing, so it is HUGE that we can communicate in this manner.

We were fingerprinted today!  It took all of about 15 minutes, and we were one of two couples in the whole office.  Mark that off the list!  Now that is complete, we can move on to the next step - waiting for our I-800 Approval.  The officer claims that she will approve it "right away," but what is "right away" in her world may be different than "right away" in my world.  I sent her an email as soon as we got home to let her know that we were fingerprinted today and to please send a copy of the approval by email as well as by snail mail (which is standard practice for this approval).  

(This is kind of like a scavenger hunt or the Amazing Race.  One thing has to happen before you can go to the next step.)  The 800 approval is important for us to get to the next step.  Approximately 2 weeks after the 800 is approved, we will receive a letter telling us that we can apply for the DS-260.  This is what we will need to get a visa for our child to enter the US.  Once we get that approval, our agency lets their staff in China know, and they file our paperwork with the US Consulate.  This takes another 2 weeks for approval.  They then pick up that paperwork and send all of those documents to Chinese government arm for adoptions.  They then issue our "Travel Approval" within a couple of weeks.  Once we get our travel approval, we can then begin planning our travel and know when we need to be there.  Oh and somewhere in there, we have to apply for OUR visas to enter/exit China.  So, if all goes well (special prayers, please), we could be traveling in 8 weeks or so!  If all of this is a repeat for you, I apologize.  I just realized that I think I put a lot of this in the last post.  Oops!

Thanks again to everyone for praying and for asking how things are going when we see you.  It means a lot!!  Hopefully, I'll be able to post again soon when we get our 800 Approval.  Have a great week!

Jill

Update (kind of) - Fingerprints, I-800, Home Projects, and Packing List

Happy Chinese New Year! This 2 week holiday begins tomorrow in China. The first week is designated to be spent with family and friends. The 2nd week involves traditions to bring good luck.

It has been 22 days since we got “The Call.” I will say that those 22 days have gone by super-fast for the most part. I will also tell you that it is all still really surreal. I think that is because it has been such a long journey to this point with many ups and downs, twists and turns. A lot has happened in our lives during those 7 years. I keep thinking, “Is this really happening?” It is also a “hurry up and wait” exercise. We rush around and do paperwork as quickly as possible, and then wait. When we get the next round of approvals, we will rush around and do paperwork, and wait again. And, on and on….you get the idea. I’ve heard all my life, “Be careful what you wish for,” and I think that holds true. Many, many years ago, I prayed that God would give me more patience. I think He heard my prayer and has taught me a 7-year lesson in patience. (I’m still not very good at it, by the way.) Waiting is hard, folks…..really heard…especially when you know that there is a precious 2 year old little girl in an orphanage waiting for you to come and get her. Tomorrow starts Chinese New Year. I wonder if they are celebrating. I wonder what she's doing right now….I wonder a lot these days.

 We sent her a care package last week through our adoption agency. I put together a photo album with names in English and Chinese, as well as a monogrammed lovey, and a disposable camera. (One adoptive mother suggested that we send the camera, which I thought was a great idea.) But, I’ll tell ya….those are hard to find in the digital camera era! We don’t know if Olivia will get the package, but we wanted to send it just in case. Perhaps she can start learning what we look like and be able to better recognize us when we get there! Anything we can do now to let her know that she is loved is worth it. 

A sweet college friend of mine and I reconnected a couple of months ago. She adopted a little girl from China in March of 2013. She was sweet to organize a little get-together with a few other people who have either gone through the process or are going through the process right now. It was wonderful to hear what these ladies had to say and for them to answer our questions. I know that they will prove to be wonderful resources as the girls grow up.   What a blessing!

I wish I had more of an update for you, but I really don’t. The only update I can tell you is that I talked with someone in the adoption unit of USCIS (US Citizen and Immigration Services) earlier this week. He gave me our appointment date to be re-fingerprinted. Our fingerprints are only good for 15 months and expire on 2/20, and they have to be up-to-date when we come home. Our fingerprint appointment is set for 2/11 at the USCIS office near the Nashville Airport. This may unfortunately delay our approval slightly longer than I had hoped, but maybe not. (We are still thinking we will travel in April or May.) Our “case” has been assigned to a USCIS officer, which means that someone has our file sitting on her desk, which is a good thing that we already have an officer. My understanding is that when the fingerprints are approved, she should then approve the I-800 fairly quickly. The I-800 approval means that the US approves us to adopt a specific child. Once we receive that approval, we will wait for approximately 2 weeks to receive a letter from the National Visa Center, and in the meantime, complete Olivia’s Visa Application (the DS-something or other). Once the Visa application is sent in, we wait for information to be sent to the Chinese gov’t and for their Travel Approval. Once we get the Travel Approval, they will schedule the appointment at the US Consulate for us. This is the date that they whole trip centers around. Once we have the appointment date, we will know when we travel and begin making those arrangements. Oh, and somewhere in there, we have to apply for our Visas (Jill, Philip, and Ansley). Whew! I think I got all of that right……I’m so afraid that I’m going to miss a step! All of these forms have a different letter and number name, which are all so confusing!!  But, I am so thankful to be going through this right now….it just means we are one step closer to meeting our little one!

We have also been busy with home projects. It’s kind of like fruit basket turnover, actually. We are in the process of moving our bedroom downstairs, renovating the bathroom downstairs, turning the old laundry room into master closet, moving the laundry room to the old “Hobby Room” off of the downstairs sitting area, making our bedroom into the guestroom, and making the office Olivia’s new room. We hope that Phase 1 (the downstairs area) will be complete in late February, and then we will begin Phase 2 (Olivia’s Room!). Philip has done most of the work and is doing a great job!   He's a keeper!

I know that this probably won’t surprise many of you, but I’m already putting together the packing list for our trip. Actually, I’ve been compiling this list for over 7 years, but don’t tell too many people that. Ha! China has very strict baggage requirements on their in-country flights, so we have to keep that in mind, since we will have at least one, maybe 2, in-country flights while there. They only allow one checked bag @ 44 lbs max per person, while the US allows 2 checked bags @ 50 lbs each per person. We also have to think that we will be lugging this stuff around with us for 2 weeks with a 4 year old and a 2 year old in more than likely 3 different locations within China. So, packing lightly brings on a whole new meaning. (So, when you see our pictures and we are wearing the same clothes, please don’t think badly of us.) For a while now, I’ve scoured the blogs of other adoptive families to see what they have taken with them….what they used and what they didn’t use….what they wished they had taken…..etc. It is a very daunting task to think about packing for 4 of us for a 2 week trip in a foreign country in 2-3 suitcases! I’ve also been trying to estimate what size clothes and shoes Olivia will need. The measurements I have are from October, so those will be about 6 months old by the time we travel. From my estimations, she will be almost the same size as Ansley at that age, so that is a blessing. I kept most all of Ansley’s clothes, so we are set in that department. We will take a couple of different sizes with us, just in case. The shoes are where I have no idea. I’m planning to take 2-3 different sizes of shoes as well.

So….between work being busy, home renovations making me crazy, and making sure I don’t mess up with this adoption paperwork, I’m pretty much a nut these days! We appreciate all of your kind words, thoughts, and prayers. We definitely need them! We are so blessed with wonderful friends and family.  We ask that you continue to pray for our preparation, for Olivia, for the orphanage workers, for the folks handling our paperwork, and again, for her birth parents…that they know their little girl is loved so much by so many.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week.
Jill

The Moment We've Been Waiting For…..

I have waited over 7 years to write this post, and as I sit here, my heart is full of so many emotions that I can't even describe them all to you. It is hard to put into words how I feel: beyond blessed, overjoyed, very grateful, nervous, anxious, and the list goes on and on. On Wednesday of this week, the moment we have been waiting on for 7 years happened. We received THE CALL….THE ADOPTION CALL….yes, folks, it finally happened!

Many of you may not even know that we have been working on an adoption, or many of you may have assumed that we were not pursuing one anymore since it has been so long (2006). But, we continued to keep our name on the list and do what we had to do to remain active in the system. Deep in our hearts, we knew that if God meant for us to have another child, it would happen. After all, Ansley was a miracle baby.

Month after month, year after year, we would receive monthly updates from the adoption agency. When we began this journey in 2006, the wait was quoted as 6-12 months. For those of you have been on this journey with us, you know that China has changed many regulations. Adoptions seemed to have almost stopped for "healthy children" from China. About a year ago, the wait seemed to speed up a little bit, so we renewed our paperwork. (Something we had not done since Ansley was born.) A social worker had to come back into our home and interview all 3 of us (including Ansley). We had to renew our medical reports, our financial reports, our police reports, our fingerprints….well, you get the picture.

Jill would spend time watching the China Adoption rumor websites to see what dates they were referring each month, and time slowly passed by. This summer (2013), we hoped we were getting close, but again, they slowed down again. Finally, in November, we just knew that we would be in the next batch, only to miss it by one day. So, we waited again. Then, at 11:38am on January 8, 2014, our lives changed forever with one phone call. Philip was in California treating his Dad to a trip to see Auburn play in the National Championship game (Bill, Auburn '66), and Jill was at work. My cell phone rang while I was at lunch, and I knew by the number who it was….it was our adoption agency. When I answered the phone, she said, "Jill? It's Children's Hope, and I have your referral." I can't even begin how to tell you how I felt; I could hardly speak. The first few minutes of the phone call are a blur. I had to run upstairs to my office to get a pen and paper. Several months ago, I had printed out some questions to ask when THE CALL came, so that I would remember what to ask. Luckily, I found those questions pretty quickly. While I was doing that, she conferenced Philip in and gave us the great news together.

She told us about a little girl named Yong (last name) Ning Yu who is waiting for us to come and pick her up in the Hunan Province in China. She just turned two years old on January 1st and is just precious. She told us the orphanage where she is and some other minor details. Then, when we got off the phone, she emailed us medical reports, other information, and 2 pictures!!! (I am so thankful for the technology that we have today. When we started this process, folks would have to wait 24 hours to see a picture since they weren't able to send anything over email back then. And, Philip was able to see the information at the same time I was! My, how far we've come!) She then overnighted the entire package to us, which we received on Thursday. In the package was a letter from the Chinese government written in English and Mandarin that said she was ours if we accept her. That was another surreal moment: seeing our names on an official Chinese government document - wow. She was actually "matched" to us on 12/31/13….one day before her 2nd birthday.

This is all still pretty surreal to me. I have to look at her picture to realize that it is real, and let me tell you folks, God is good. Her medical reports look great, and our pediatrician confirmed that today.

I spent a lot of today completing more paperwork that was very tedious. I think I checked over things 5 times before I sent them!! There were all sorts of different questions that had to be answered just so, or it would throw everything off. STRESSFUL!!! One set of paperwork had to go back to the adoption agency. The other set had to go to the U.S. government. Once the US government approves this set of paperwork, then we will receive a letter from the National Visa Center. We will have to file another form in order to get a visa for her to enter the US. Then, after that is done, we can request a travel approval from the Chinese government. Once we have that approval, we can start planning our trip! So, while I wish I could say that paperwork is over; it's not. The estimated travel time is 3-4 months from now. We will spend approximately 2 weeks in China. We can't wait to go to China to meet her and bring her home!!

The next thing on my list is to prepare a care package to send to her in China. We are able to send 2-3 things. I plan to make her a hard-back photo board book that I have seen on Pinterest, and I plan to send her either a lovey or stuffed animal. We also have to start work on her room!

My goodness; we have a lot to do between now and then. You would think that after 7 years of waiting, we would have things ready. But in reality, we didn't want to do anything until we knew it was really happening. I guess the time has come!!

A special thank you to you, our friends and family...especially those who have been with us every step of the way of this long journey. And, yes, I feel that journey is an appropriate word to use. Without your love and support, we would have thrown in the towel long ago! We are blessed in too numerous ways to mention here. Just know that you are on the top of the list.

Please continue to pray…specifically that the paperwork is filled out correctly, that it gets to where it needs to go, that we get the needed approvals, and that we are able to make our travel plans sooner than later. Please also pray for our family and our upcoming transition. This is probably not going to be easy. Please pray for our little girl. Pray that she is well taken care of, that she knows that someone in the world loves her very much, and that we are coming to get her soon. Pray for the orphanage workers taking care of her now. And, last but not least, pray for her birth parents. I can't even wrap my mind around that right now.

Thanks again for everything.

Love, Jill, Philip, and Ansley

I am going to do my best to keep the blog updated as we know more. I also plan to update the blog while we are in China meeting our new little one.

Happy New Year!

Wow! 2009 has been an unbelievable year for the Martindale family! We are so blessed.

We had a wonderful Christmas and took Ansley to her first Tennessee game on New Year's Eve (Chick-Fil-A Bowl). Despite the loss, we had a terrific time, and Ansley did great! She even fell asleep during the 2nd quarter. :)

We pray for a healthy, happy, and blessed 2010 for all of you. Thank you for your love and friendship through such a miraculous year for us.

Love,
Jill, Philip, Ansley, and Mocha Martindale