Just for fun...

I saw this on Jen's blog and thought it was fun. It's random words from my blog all combined together. You can get one for your blog at the Snap Shirts website and have it put on a tee shirt. Cute, huh?

Courtesy of my cyber-buddy Tian, this is Kavanna's name in Chinese, written in five different styles. There is no "v" sound in Chinese so the name is translated with a "w". The characters mean triumph, hope and elegant. Those meanings resonate in so many ways. Thank you, Tian!

Recommended Reading...

I recommend "Yell-Oh Girls", an anthology about growing up Asian and female, edited by Vickie Tam. Something to read during the wait!

There is also an interesting New York Times article about international adoption, "Adopted In China, Seeking Identity In America" about some of the first adoptees, their views on culture, assimilation, and what it's like to be adopted into a family who's racially different.

Waiting Families

My heart goes out to the families with a May 31st LID. In January the CCAA sent referrals for dossiers logged in through mid-May 2005. The next batch matched through May 25th. Now they have matched only five days, May 26th through May 30th. It will take another month for the May 31st people to get their referrals. Yes, the CCAA will take four months to match one month of dossiers. I can't imagine how torturous this must feel to the May 31st families. Sending you sympathy, support and cyber-hugs...

Part of the hold-up may be the huge number of dossiers received in March, as a result of Oprah's show on Chinese adoption several months earlier. It's also rumored that the Hunan baby trafficking scandal caused officials give closer scrutiny to the babies' documentation. I'm very grateful to the CCAA for the care and attention to detail they give this process. I just wish they'd go faster!!

For the rest of us, this latest development means probably coming to terms with waiting until next year for our babies. The waiting period is 10-11 months as of right now, and will probably continue to lengthen (it was 6 months when we started this process!). It's likely that we won't get Kavanna for over a year (ugh, I hate even writing that).

I'm trying to keep a positive outlook and tell myself all the "right" things:

*It will happen when it's meant to happen (okay, what does that even mean??)

*The wait will disappear when we finally have Kavanna (people told me that I'd forget about the pain of childbirth, too; ha!!!)

*There's nothing we can do but make the best of it (yeah, I rationally get that but I also I hate feeling so powerless and helpless).

*Blah, blah, blah.

Anyone else out there feeling the same? What's the best way to get through this wait? What are you planning to do with your time? Leave a comment with any thoughts...

Lost In Translation

Funny article in the New York Times about a website that reveals how Chinese tattooos are not, shall we say, exactly accurate. For example, Britney Spears has a tattoo that she thought meant "mysterious" and it turnbs out it means "odd" or "strange". Great site run by Tian Tang that's definitely worth checking out!

Twelve years from now...

In twelve years our adorable babies will be doing stuff like this. That's Ariel (on the left) and her friend Stephanie rehearsing for a skit on Alexander the Great. They're making the most of their sugar highs (chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast) and having fun. They're so cute. I even forgive them for waking me up at 6:45am on a Saturday morning!

Optimism

Thank you to friends old and new for the kind comments and emails regarding yesterday... Today is a new and better day and I'm filled with a sense of optimism about the future. We are so blessed in many different ways. We have much to look forward to in the coming year, and much to appreciate in the moment!!

A Sad Day...

March 14, 2006 was our due date. Part of me mourns our loss and feels sad for what might have been, for the precious life we had so briefly and then lost. The moment when we saw that terrible stillness on the ultrasound was the worst experience of my life and David's. Yet everything we went through brought us to where we are today, focusing on the future, not the past. We didn't know it at the time but that terrible day was the first step on this journey to Kavanna. Today is difficult but it will bring us closer to tomorrow... and to our daughter in China.

Rumors!!

Rumor: 1. a story in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts. 2. common hearsay

Lately I cannot get enough of adoption rumors. Every time I turn on the computer and eagerly check my sources (various yahoo groups, the MSN Adopting from China website and the China Adoption Forums). I'm like a bloodhound searching for a scent... a pig nosing for truffles in some muddy French field... you get the idea. Hmmm, perhaps I should use a more compelling metaphor. Okay, here goes: I'm like Carrie from Sex And The City trying to find a Manolo Blahnik sale. Or a decent guy. But I digress....

Yes, I am obsessed with the latest rumors, specifically those that pertain to referrals. Recently I found a new blogsite that fuels my addiction. It's called In Search Of Rumors and it's as addictive as chocolate. I can always find something to add to my preoccupation. Will the wait extend to 18 months, as a Swedish agency has reported? Or will it speed up again, as others are predicting? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, all we have are rumors. Heard anything lately????

Log In Date!!!

Dear GWCA Family,

We are happy to report that your dossier was registered in China on February 6, 2006. You are a member of the February 2006 LID Group. If we receive any additional information we will contact you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, if you need assistance or support, please feel free to give us a call.

Congratulations,

Great Wall China Adoption


When a child is born, an invisible red thread reaches out from the child’s spirit and connects to all important people who will enter the child’s life. As the child grows, the threads shorten, bringing closer those people who are destined to be together. ~Chinese Proverb~

This is my attempt to attach a picture to our profile. You'd think that someone with a post-graduate degree and a reasonable level of intelligence would be able to accomplish this task with relative ease. But no... so far this attempt has entailed a crash course (self-taught) in photo cropping, learning kilobyte size of photos, and editing. Probably a ten year old kid could do this without a problem. Here goes...

Blankets!

Ariel's blanket

Kavanna's blanket...

When I was a toddler my favorite object was a beloved "blankee". It started out being a pretty patterned large piece of soft cloth... a few years and many washings later it was a faded, very soft cloth with little discernible pattern, and I loved it. Recently I discovered these beautiful blankets at Graceful Kate Designs and got one for both my girls (weird to say that, since one of my girls seems so far away, geographically and timewise, but I know she's there). They are beautiful satin on one side and very snuggly soft on the other. Not only that, this company donates ten percent of each purchase (of the Chinese adoption blankets) to Half The Sky .