This is for real!

This has been such a great week for us! Last Friday, the 20th, we received our travel approval (TA)! This was huge! Then Monday we received our Consulate Appointment at the US Embassy in China. Today we booked our flights! It's official y'all, we're going to China!!!!!  We fly out of Kansas City on January 15th, stop over in Chicago, then fly on to Beijing. We'll do some sight seeing (and sleeping!), then head to Guangzhou on the 19th. We should get Haylie on either the 19th or the 20th, just depends on what her orphanage will do. Guangzhou will be filled with medicial appointments, embassy appointments, and hanging out. We will fly back and be in Kansas City the afternoon of the 29th!  This is a long trip and has us filled a lot of different emotions! Excitement, anxiety, fear, anxiety, a little bit of dread...I mean really, who actually wants to fly 13.5hrs, with a toddler? And who wants to leave their other 3 kids for two weeks? Not me...nope, I'm dreading it. Homesick already and I haven't even left! 

Thanks to all for sticking with us through all of this, the support we've received has been really wonderful! Once we figure out the internet in China I'll plan on posting here daily! We would love for you to follow along our trip and leave us comments! I'm sure it'll help us feel closer to home! 

Oh! On Christmas Eve we received an update on Haylie that included new pictures! She is just adorable. I can't wait to finally see her smile!!!! 

the finish line is close!

Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey and provided support to our family!  Sage and I entered into adoption knowing that simply, we wanted to help.  We wanted to provide a family to someone who without us may never know the love that every child deserves.  We had no idea how emotional this journey would be!

On October 15th China blessed us with our Letter of Approval (LOA) to adopt Haylie.  Since then we have rushed through more paperwork to different government offices.  The US has now approved Haylie to come to the states.  Our final packet of paperwork is being delivered as I type back to China.  We expect to receive our Travel Approval (TA) in the next 3-4 weeks!  Yes my friends, we are going to China!!!!!  Ideally we will be leaving December 26th and returning home sometime during the first week in January.

Unfortunately we still are quite a bit away from reaching our financial goal needed in order to complete Haylie's adoption.  The international fees include our flights, hotels, orphanage donation, along with visa for Haylie to return to the US with us.  If you feel pulled to help us reach the final steps of this journey, please visit our fundraising page  http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bringing-haylie-home-/106230  We appreciate all of the love and support that we received from family and friends during this emotional journey!  One Less Orphan

I will not leave you as orphans - John 14:18

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bringing-haylie-home-/106230

Needing prayers

Update on our adoption process: back in May we received our pre-approval (PA) for our sweet Haylie. In July our dossier was finally completed and sent to China (DTC), hallelujah! Now we are "patiently" waiting for China to give us our letter of approval (LOA), which means they've reviewed our entire dossier an deem us acceptable parents for Haylie. We are on day 47 of that wait. Some people have received their approval in as quick as 30 days, others received theirs in as many as 140+....so yes, I'm a little on edge every day as I wait for that phone to ring! So here is where I ask for your help and ask you to lift our family up in prayer. In order to travel this year, and be back home before Christmas!, we need to receive our LOA this week! If not we will probably wait to travel until Jan. I know that I can't be in China over Christmas, it will break my heart to be without my children and family..... So, if you pray, please include one for us!  Plus, once I receive LOA I can share Haylie's picture with you all!!!! :-)

Big Updates!!!

I apologize for the lack of posts, but honestly, the work we've been doing you probably wouldn't find very exciting! The last five months have been spent "paper chasing". We worked with our home study agency to get home study approval, we dealt with KS, WY, and TX to get documentation that Sage and I are legit....lots of time spent with the Secretary of States, lots of money spent on our fed-ex account...and in return we got the big pay off! Our dossier is completed and was sent to China! Yessss!!!!! To those following this blog who have also adopted or are in the process, you absolutely understand how big of an achievement this is! So in a perfect world we will travel before the end of the year and our little princess will be home for Christmas! Let me stress, in a perfect world! 

fundraiser!!!!!

One of my favorite blogger friends, Shannon, is assisting us with a Scentsy fundraiser!  A portion of the dollar amount sold will be going towards our adoption.  I am very excited about this and have had good results so far!  If you are interested in browsing &/or making a purchase please check out this website http://shannonmc.scentsy.us and then click on my party, Kristen Dilka.  If you have friends or family that may need to refill their scents please forward them this link!  We'll be closing the party out the end of the month.  I thank you in advance!  Also, if you have any creative ideas for ways that we could continue to raise money, please share!

THANK YOU for helping us in our journey to bring Haylie home!

Update!!!!

Sorry that I haven't really posted a whole lot here, I feel like all I can tell anyone is that we're still working on paperwork.  Paperwork, paperwork, and a little bit more paperwork!  At this point though I do have more interesting news.  Are you ready for it?  Drum roll please.....

WE HAVE A MATCH! 

Yes!  We are matched with an absolutely beautiful little girl!  I cannot reveal much information at this point but as soon as I can, rest assured that I will flood this blog with as many details and pictures as I can! 

Our homestudy is in the final phase, it's off with a typist.  That's a HUGE releif!  I absolutely cannot wait to go get my little princess and bring her home where we can spoil the heck out of her! :-)

"deadline" came and went

Well folks, March 1st has come and gone! When Sage and I started this journey we had set a goal of shipping our paperwork off to China on March 1st.  This is also the date of our 5-year anniversary, so, Happy Anniversary to us!  Needless to say, um yeah, we missed the deadline.  Hopefully by the end of this week all of our paperwork will at least be turned into our home study agency, which will then mean our application can be sent to China  in about six weeks.  So, end of April is the new goal!  If you're following along on this journey, be patient, keep checking in.... we definitely understand that the patience isn't an easy task! :-)  Hope everyone has a great week!

trucking on...

This past week was pretty productive for us!  Logan and Riley needed to have TB tests done so we were able to get that done.  Now I just need to drop off the forms and proof of neg. TB tests to our pediatricians so that they can fill out that our kids are up to date on immunizations etc etc.... Then Sage and I need to go to the doctor's and have our papers filled out stating that we are over-all healthy people.  I sent off all of our paperwork to our employers to fill out employer verifications and also information on our health insurance, so just waiting to get that back.  Also waiting on a few reference letters to get sent back to us.  To you it may sound like a lot of stuff left to do, to us, holy crow it seems like we've come a really long way! We are definitely not going to make the March 1st deadline that we had given ourselves... maybe April 1st?  Fingers crossed!!!!!!

If you're new to this blog, family..... welcome!!!! :-)

Along with getting so much accomplished this week we also got nailed with a winter storm.... nearly 10 inches later...... and now they're talking about another wave hitting us on Monday with yet ANOTHER 10 inches! Yikes!

still here!

Well we are slowly trucking on!  Last week we chose a home study agency, this week we went and had our first meeting.  We have TONS of paperwork to fill out!  We now have two large packets to complete between the agencies.  I dove in head first to try and be as quick as we could but it's kind of like chasing our tail.  Can't complete this until we finish this, but can't finish that until we complete this. Ugh!  Big thing right now will be completing our home study, which is quite the process and can take a couple of months!  At this point we have done everything we can, now we're just waiting on others.  We need reference letters, doctor's forms, etc.... it's all very exciting! I'll be honest though, I'm wishing I could find a money tree!!!! :-)  Here's how I feel right now.....

The kiddos here are keeping me busy.  Poor Hunter (our 8 month old) has had an ear infection since just before Christmas.  This week he started his 3rd antibiotic and received a referral to an ENT.  Poor guy, though all of my guys have a history of angry ears.... between the older two we have had FIVE sets of tubes!  A couple of weeks ago Logan (our 9 year old) got the flu, and then to top it off he had a nasty ear infection.  The following week Riley (our 4 year old) got the flu and added an ear infection to his too.  Wow.... we might as well rent a room in the doctor's office and open a tab at the pharmacy! ha!  Good thing these kids just keep smiling through it all!

Wouldn't even guess they were sick huh? At this moment the little guy was running 104 temp and Riley's ear drum was on the verge of rupturing!

In addition to being a stay at home mom (my favorite gig!) I'm also an RN.  I work the night shift, 7pm - 7:30am, so that I can be home with my kiddos during the day.  Yeah, I don't get a lot of sleep! lol  I love it though, love both of my jobs.... I'm lucky that I can pick up extra shifts to help pay for the costs of our adoption.  But all this work = one tired momma!  But SOOOO worth it! :-)

Sooo impatient!!!!

So, this waiting game and I are not gonna do well together! I mailed off our agency contract on Friday, along with our first big check. Finally today I emailed to see if they haf received it. Yup, it's there, they advised me I would be hearing from our consultant and we'd get our next steps given to us. Um ok, WHEN?!?! I did my part, now hurry up and call me!!!! I just gotta keep telling myself, I'm not their only client. Today a friend of ours got to meet their new son, I am so excited for them! It's gonna be an amazing day when we get to meet our little girl! In the meantime, my boys are keeping me busy while we wait! Between the 3 of them, we are "enjoying" the flu, the stomach bug, and double ear infection. They are troopers though, everyone is still smiling!

my angels

Tonight I submitted the paperwork off to our agency and sent off some money!  It's really happening people!  We also came across a beautiful little girl that is looking for a home, she is located in Africa.  We have the option to place a hold on her which will give us first dibs on her medical history and then if it seems she will fit into our family then we can go ahead and proceed with our adoption through Africa.  Basically we have to decide whether we want to go through China or Africa now!  So many decisions and none to be taken lightly!  For now I think we will proceed with China as planned but keep Africa in the back of our minds.  So today was officially "day 1" of our adoption process.... WOW!  :-)

I'll leave you with this photo of my precious kiddos from Christmas...... I love how they keep talking about their little sister and what fun things we'll do when she comes home!  Butterflies are just about nonstop these days!

the plan

CHINA!!!!!!

Over the last couple of months I've talked to multiple agencies, looked at a million sites, considered multiple countries, done a lot of soul searching, and we have come down to only this: China.  And not just China, but special needs.  

  We are hoping to get a little girl, no older than 3.  To say that we are excited is an understatement!  My husband and I literally get giddy when we talk about it.  Our oldest two children are excited, however, they have high expectations.  For example, my 4yr old would prefer that we get a boy with leaves on his ankles ~ thank you creators of The Odd Life of Timothy Green! :)

In all seriousness, the kids are super excited!

So this week our task is to fill out our agency application, select special needs that we feel we are equipped to handle, and itemize our assets.  That last part will be the most difficult!  We have a lot of "stuff"!  Wish me luck with that one! 

If you know of any families out there going through the same stages as my family that have a blog, link me up with them! I'm sure that I'll be able to use the encouragement through out this journey, and will love having someone to talk to who knows exactly what I'm feeling.  

Let the journey begin!!!!!