WOOHOO!!!
Great news today!!! We received our I797C form. This means that we are approved to adopt from Vietnam!! YEAH!!!! Now we sit and wait for our referral of our little angel! Ispokewith our CM yesterday and she said hopefully the infant referrals will soon be rolling in to the agency. Once again, as I said before, Norm's birthday is Jan. 25th and it would be great to get our picture for that. He would be so excited. We are getting very antsy and we can hardly wait to see her. On the 17th it will officially be 2 month waiting! Our original time frame as some of you may remember is 4-6 months so we are getting closer by the day. Well keep praying as things seem to be falling into place.

Hello again!! I hope today is a good day for everyone.
As you recall yesterday I wrote that I sent an email to our CM to check status...NO NEWS AGAIN!!! It's okay though. As she says...no news can be good news because at least it wasn't bad news. Right?!?!?!? Well one GOOD thing she did mention is that we are going to be able to work on completing our dossier the beginning of January!!! WOOHOO!! This means that we are getting closer and that we will be prepared then when the referral comes which will make our travel time closer yet. This was very exciting news for us. The paperwork will take some time seeing as we have to go to alot of spots to get it filled out. Then it will have to be notarized, sent out to the state consulate for completion and finally sent to Vietnam for fianlization. It will travel many places before it is completed. But it's all in a day of adoption. Jaden will be so worth every minute and penny spent. So we are actually moving along and each day getting closer to our Jaden!!!!

Well I am trying to keep up with this and Christmas!! I think I am ready for Christmas, it could come tomorrow. I have shopped, wrapped, and cleaned and I am now just taking a break and checkin out bloggerville. Well no new news again. We are now 4 weeks and 2 days of waiting. Hopefully we will have our referral within the 4-6 month time frame. I have been once again debating the thought of accepting a baby boy referral if one would come available. It is a hard decision and I have been praying about it. I have my list of pros and cons for both genders however the boy negatives outweigh all others too much at this point making me lean towards theno side of it but I want to remain open minded also. It is hard when you have a choice. Today the salon is slow so I have a little too much "idle time" on my hands. It gives me too much time to sit and think about this long wait. I am going to need to get myself focused again. I sent off another email to our CM to see whether there has been any news. I'll bet she is getting sick of that every week. I just feel like I need to stay connected on it, as if maybe it is going to get us closer. Well I'll let you know!!!

Well this has certainly been one hectic week in the salon. This is a good thing though because it made my week fly by. Hopefully another week closer to referral time. I got an email from our CM yesterday that she feels we are on the right track. I think she is believing that Vietnam is finally starting to come through and hopefully it won't be long. I have a friend in this same process and she got word yesterday that there probably won't be any more referral for a few weeks but I am truly hoping that once it starts it rolls full force and that we will get our referral by Norm's birthday (Jan. 25). I put in an email to our CM to ask her opinion on that one. She never likes to get my hopes up though. She is very conservative which for me is probably best. I am feeling good about it right now. At the present time I am trying to stay focused on Christmas...its meaning and the fellowship we will be sharing with family and friends. We have some big plans coming up with family and we have a lot of preparation to do for them so I need to remain focused and in control of it. I have a few gift to wrap for Norm and a little shopping to do for the girls yet and I think that is ready. I guess today I should find time to finish decorating the tree too. WOW, how did this holiday sneak in so quickly??!!! Well I'll keep you in the know!!!!

Just an update!!! I got an email from my case manager today and she said that they got their first referral from the Vietnam program. It was an 8 year old little boy. I hope they had a family waiting for him. This means alot to us because hopefully it is a sign that the program is up and running and that referrals will now start to flow. Lets keep praying that our referral will come soon. I'll keep you all updated as best as I can.

Well today starts yet another week of waiting. We can only hope and pray that this is going to be a successful week. I feels some days like I need the agency to email or call me everyday to keep me posted on any changes. They could do that but lately everyday would be the same recorded message over and over. I need to stop reading all those blogs out there. I read some that say their agency had a referral for them anywhere from immediately to 1 month after submission of dossier. If this is possible then why is ours taking longer. I know I have no right to complain as some have been waiting much longer and some will wait longer that we will but I am so ready!!!! Today I did a littlemore decoratingin Jadens room. I try to do a little at a time so that the time can tick by without me sitting around sulking all of the time. I just don't know how to remain focused as our case manager has asked us to. All I can focus on is Jaden and receiving a picture of her. I hope that there will be referrals for Christmas...if not for me, then at least for others in our agency. At this point I need to see something positive happening.
I have just about completed the Christmas shopping and I am all caught up on wrapping. I don't intend to bake any cookies unless my hubby drives me crazy about it. I just don't have it in me to drag everything out and do it. We set up our tree today and now I have to decorate it. This adoption process has me so behind. I always have my tree up and done the first week of December. I just wish we had that referral of Jaden for Christmas so we could hang her picture on the tree. Everyone around us keeps asking...why is it taking so long. I have a hard time understanding too considering I have heard so many people say that there are so many infants waiting to be given a home. It makes no sense.
Well I have to get myself focused and stop sulking day in and day out.
I'll let you know if I get info on any changes.

Well another week has gone by...another week of waiting. We spoke with our case manager yesterday and she said they are still pioneering the journey to get referrals from Vietnam. It sounds to me like things need to be completely finalized with the program through our agency before anything can really get started. They have asked us to stay focused and to be positive and patient, so I am openly accepting any suggestions you may have to help me out. The waiting is gruelling!!!!
Today I have an appointment with my new thyroid doctor so I am anxious to see what he has up his sleeve. I have been feeling pretty good so I hope he doesn't change things up too much!!
Well keep on focusing with me on this and keep praying, it seems like that's what we have to depend on at this point.

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I am trying to add my ticker here and I seem to be too stupid to do it.

Well while I have your attention I will let you know that I received an email from my case manager today and it was nothing good. She stated that she was in contact with the Vietnam Program Director and he gave no indication as to when our agency could expect any referrals. She told us to stick to our original estimate of 4-6 months. I am already crazy...how much more can we take. I only hope you are all still praying and maybe the power of prayer will bring us closer to a referral. I have been following a blog from another Vietnam adopting family and they are in Vietnam now and got their daughter yesterday. She is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! She is so tiny and so darling. I completely envy them. They were very fortunate that they got their referral and travel rather quickly. Different agency and orphanage though. We just need to trust that the Lord will provide our daughter to us when the timing is right.

Today had to be the most difficult day in adoption world for us. This morning our case manager from our agency phoned and told me that they had 4 baby boys available immediately from Taiwan and if we were interested she would submit our application to try for approval from the country. Well we pondered and I sobbed hysterically all day about this decision. In the end we concluded that our hearts were more set on a baby girl than we thought and that we would wait for our dream angel from Vietnam to come available to us. I now have a guilt about me that I didn't accept such a wonderful offer. After all we are tired of waiting and this was a great opportunity to get started...but we just felt the path to a boy was the wrong way for us to go. We wanted to accept our referral with excitement, and be overjoyed with love and we just weren't feeling that. But, what a rush it is to get that phonecall. I can't wait until it is theright one. We did however get better news from our CM about the Vietnam program. About a week ago she told me that Vietnam would only be sending 2 referrals per month and she told me today that there will be several referrals at a time and flowing very steadily into the agency beginning very soon. So she reassured me that staying put inthe referral line for Vietnam was the best place for us to be right now and that hopefully withing a few short months we will have that perfect referral. So please continue to pray for us.