11 months and what can I say...

Ok. I know that I haven't posted anything this month and well we are half way to our next LID month anniversary (the big 1 year) but I don't really know what to say. I guess the good news is that China is finally in 2006. That's right we are no longer talking 2005. They got to January 4, 2006. Now for the bad news. It took 31 months to refer 2005; and well if they take that long that's almost three more years to get through 2006 and then we have to get to April 2007 so you can do the math.......not great. I know anything can happen but with the Olympics coming to China, we are praying they don't stop referrals for a couple of months which is what is being said could happen.

We are beginning to look at our agencies special needs kiddos. They are called Children of Promise (COP for short). Once a quarter (every three months or so) China sends Bethany a list of special needs children. The list has boys and girls on it with varying degrees of special needs and varying ages. Some special needs are very minor and that is what we are looking at. However, how Bethany does the process, we are in the second group that can request a child. What I mean is those who are through the Review Room in China get to request children off the list first. After Bethany matches those children, they re-release the list with children who were not matched. That is when we can request (at least till we get through the review room). The Review Room is working on November 2006 dossiers. So we have to wait till they get to April 2007. The Review Room was moving pretty quickly but has really started to slow down (Surprise, Surprise). They have been working on November 2006 dossiers for three months now. Once we are through Review Room, we can request as many children as we want off of the special needs list. They only match you with one but you can request as many as possible. So that is what we are looking at right now. Truthfully I don' t know if we'll find Anna off the COP list but I do know that I don't want to wait four to five more years to hold my first child.

So I guess I had some things to say after all. I'll end with this. Please pray for us. Some of you know the situation we just went through and you know our disappointment. Our blog is public so I won't go into more details about the situation. However, we are both struggling with our disappointment and I'm struggling with why it didn't happen. I know you can say "It wasn't God's will" but I believed God was showing me that it was going to happen and I was convinced in my heart that it was going to happen and now here I am with empty arms and an ache in my heart so great. I know that the Lord is good and I know He is working but that doesn't take away the hurt and disappointment I'm feeling right now, so I really covet your prayers.

We love you all.

10 months and 4 days to go

I know I'm a little late on this post but I really don't have a whole lot to update. We celebrated our ten month LID anniversary with some delicious Chinese. We then went to Florida for the weekend to see the family. We got to see Alexis and Rae so we were happy about that but we missed Elijah and Tyler, which was a bummer. The title is a clue to how far China got. They made referrals to December 27th, 2005. Only four days and finally we will be in 2006!!!!! I won't know what to do with myself when we are finally in 2007 (probably be celebrating my retirement :)!). We had some excitement last Tuesday. A tornado came through our neighborhood. I have attached some pictures. God protected our home and we had just a few branches down. We continue to pray that God will move and do what He wants in our adoption and that He will receive all the glory and praise. We don't know what that is but we are excited about the possibilities.

9 months and a New Year

Ok. I'm a little late with this post. Tuesday we celebrated our nine month LID anniversary. We got our Chinese but we didn't get Anna an outfit this month. My sis, Christy, gave me a ton of clothes from her girls and Anna's closet is full. So for right now I'm not getting any new outfits. China made referrals to December 19th 2005. They didn't get very far down the road but we are praying that God does a miracle in our adoption. Whatever He wants, we are going to be obedient. We are praying that God will clearly show us His will for our adoption and we are going to be obedient .... whatever that means. So It snowed in Mississippi today. I thought I would share some pictures. I kind of went crazy with the pictures but what do you expect with a Florida native?? Enjoy.

(Well the blog will only let me show five pictures so here they are. I know there are some people reading who don't know us personally, so I thought I'd share a picture of us, as well)

8 Months and Christmas is here again

Merry Christmas

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Today we celebrated our 8 month LID anniversary. We had a very busy day which was good because it kept our mind off the fact that we have waited 8 months and we are not very much further down the road than we were when we started. China made referrals for the month of December. They got to December 14, 2005. We were hoping they would go further than six days but they didn't. Our hope for the new year is that China will begin to refer more babies and maybe a miracle will happen and next Christmas we'll be celebrating Christmas with our precious Anna. Here is Anna's Christmas outfit for this year. We think it is adorable. We look forward to seeing everyone at Christmas. We love you all.

7 Months today

Happy Thanksgiving to you all

Well another month under our belts. We enjoyed our Chinese tonight but the mood was quiet. We didn't get Anna an outfit tonight but we got a really "fitting" Halloween costume for her to use once she is home. This month went pretty quickly. We figure the next two months will go quickly as well. We are happy to report that China finally made it out of November 05. They made it to December 8 05. One day they will actually make it to 2006. We continue to hope and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait...............well you get the picture.

6 months or half a year

Ok. I hope people are reading our blog. We didn't get any comments last time so I don't know if because it is slow people aren't checking in. Unfortunately there is little to update. We are at 6 months and China is still in November they sent out referrals for this month and they went up to November 30th. The forecast for future referrals doesn't look too good. They are thinking that a year from now China might be referring March 06........UGH!!! We need you to pray. My heart is heavy right now and I'm fighting depression on how long we have to still wait. At China's current pace it'll take six to seven years to get Anna. Please don't say "Oh it won't take that long" or something to that effect because unless God does a miracle (and yes, I know he can) it'll be six to seven years at the current rate. The best thing you can do for us is to pray because our hearts our heavy with the thought of it being six more years till we hold our baby girl. Ok time to go too many tears.

5 months down....

Well it has now been five months since our log in date. This month went pretty fast. We knew it would with school starting back. We went and got Chinese and boy did I have a good laugh. Scott thought he would be brave and try something different. To put it in his words "Stretch himself". So he ordered orange beef. The waitress said we would like it. Well the sauce was pretty good but the meat was questionable. We weren't sure what "beef" this was or what animal it came from. Needless to say his face was priceless. He choked down enough to look like he ate it and then dug into my plate. Thanks for the laugh honey. Here is a picture of the outfit we got Anna for the 5 month LID anniversary. We both thought it had an Asian look to it. China made referrals through November 25, 2005. They only referred four days. Disheartening to say the least but we continue to have faith that God will bring our precious Anna to us in his time.