China Shirts

Week 1 of waiting for our Article 5 is now behind us.  Just one more week.  Next Tuesday I should get word that our Article 5 has been picked up and then delivered to CCCWA (Chinese adoption authority) for Travel Approval.  So while we wait, I'll show you my latest craft for the family.

My friend RM made adorable bleached t-shirts for her family's Uganda adoption.  I knew that once we were getting close to travel to China, I had to make these for our family.  All truth be told, the first batch failed with only 1 of 4 turning out.  It was definitely user error and being a bleach design newbie.  However, I do think I learned from that first mishap not to use lighter colors.  Sure, they will bleach, but it won't be as pronounced.  Darker colors work the best!  If you want to see how to do it for yourself, read on.  Would make for a fun project for teens.  (I can't imagine, nor would I suggest younger kids with spray bottles of straight bleach).

All the supplies you'll need.

• Dark colored t-shirts (I gave in to all black even though black isn't the most girly color).  Keep in mind that reds will bleach pink which isn't very manly for the guys in your life.  Sure, I wanted the red shirts for me and my daughter, but of course Walmart didn't have them.  I got our shirts at Walmart for about $4.00 each.
• Reynolds Freezer Paper.  I found mine at Safeway simply because the Walmart and Target by me are pretty tiny and didn't carry it.  I thought this was outrageous at over $7.00 a box, but I'm happy to share it with friends and I'm bound to make more with this.  The box is huge!
• Scissors
• Bleach
• Spray bottle.  I've been told the finger spray bottle works better than the trigger style.  Picture a hairspray bottle -- that kind of sprayer.  I got mine in the travel toiletry aisle at Walmart for less than $1.00.
• OxyClean & water solution.  Supposedly OxyClean neutralizes the bleach.  Some websites say they skipped this step, but I did it and it seemed to work just fine.  A small box of OxyClean was under $4.00 at Walmart.
• Your design.  I printed out a map of China.
• Iron.  
• Cardboard.  Just a scrap to put in between layers of the shirt so the bleach didn't soak through to the back.
• Towel.  Just in case!

Trace your design onto the paper side of the Freezer Paper.

Cut out your design.

Place on your shirt wherever you like, waxy side down, paper side up.

Iron with a hot iron.  

I used the Cotton setting on my iron.  Be careful not to move the iron back and forth because it could peel back your edges. The 2 little islands on my design were tricky.

Change into grubby clothes.  (Yeah, I'd be the one to spill bleach all over myself.  You too?)

Head outside or to the garage or your laundry room to do the bleaching.  Mind the wind if you do it outside because the wind could take your bleach mist and send it just exactly where you don't want it.

Place cardboard in between the layers of the shirt so the bleach won't soak to the back side.

Using your spray bottle filled with straight bleach, lightly mist the freezer paper edges.  Don't overdo this!  My first time around I over saturated and the design bled underneath the freezer paper and the shirts bombed.  Boo.  Back to Walmart I went for 3 more shirts.

Wait until the bleach reaches your desired intensity.

Carefully remove the cardboard, making sure the front and back layers of the shirt don't touch so the bleach doesn't soak the other side.

With Freezer Paper still attached, immediately dunk into a bucket of OxyClean and water solution to neutralize the bleach.

Ring out the shirt.  Some have rinsed it in clean water after that.  I didn't do that.  I just went straight to the washing machine.  Peel off Freezer Paper before washing.

Wash and dry as you would normally.  Keep in mind that the cheap shirts from Walmart will shrink, so plan accordingly with your temperature settings.

Enjoy your new creation!  My little girl will enjoy hers when she's home this summer.

There you have it.  Back to my waiting game for the Article 5.  Next post when we're officially waiting for Travel Approval!

Travel Decisions

It is afternoon on Tuesday in China as I type this (see my new widget on the side bar) and our NVC Letter is being hand-delivered to the Consulate in Guangzhou.  In exactly 2 weeks we will have our Article 5 granting us guardianship of Hu Jing upon arrival in her province.  No chance of this coming sooner, it's a standard 2 week process - in today, out on Tuesday the 17th.  Now onto a post about our travel plans.

In the interests of posting this for other adoptive families making travel decisions, here is a post about our thought process.

We've known all along that sending both of us to China would be outrageously expensive, but we wholeheartedly wanted to make it happen.  The joy of meeting our daughter together and sharing in that moment as husband and wife, mom and dad and daughter is a dream.  We've been in this adoption drama together and we want to see it through together.  And we certainly dreamed the impossible dream of taking our boys with us and making this happen as an entire family.  Unfortunately, it won't happen that way.

It was a hard decision to make, but only I will travel to China.  No, we don't have any fears about the plane going down and leaving our 2 boys, plus our new daughter as orphans.  It just came down to a few slices of reality.

For the most part, it came down to dollars and cents.  Had we been able to fundraise both airfares, we wouldn't have struggled with the decision - we both would be going.  But we didn't meet our fundraising goals and had to use funds from my retirement account to pay off the final adoption fees, not even including the travel fees.  We had to trust God with the money He gave us, the money that we had chosen to save for decades from now.  A lot of adoptive families use their retirement accounts.  It's just what needs to be done and God asks us to trust.

The idea of leaving our boys on one side of the globe with 2 of us on the other side didn't sit well with me either.  We don't live anywhere near family who would come out and care for them during our absence.  And in my opinion, our boys have been shuffled around enough in the last 6 months and the thought of shuffling them around for 2 weeks between friends' houses without mom and dad during our trip to China just doesn't seem fair to them.  We have enough behavioral struggles as it is these days, let's not compound things.

And lastly, my husband's back played a pretty good factor in the decision.  While he'll tell you that he'd be fine in China, lifting heavy luggage and carrying around a toddler just didn't seem to mix.  And I don't think anyone wants to be hurt or sick away from home!  We don't need his herniated disc rupturing in China, thank you very much.

So, friends, we've made the decision to send me to China alone.  I'm certainly sad that Jay can't go and I'm bummed that we can't make it a family trip with all 4 of us going on this trip of a lifetime.  I know Jay is sad to be missing out on those first moments with Hu Jing too.  I'd appreciate your prayers for him and his tender heart.

I choose to look at it this way.  I've carried 2 baby boys in my womb and with each c-section delivery, Jay has always been the first to see our boys, to hold our boys, to kiss their faces and hold their hands.  He has been the one to place our sons in my arms.  With just me going to China, I get to experience that first meeting, that first touch, that first kiss of those sweet round cheeks.  And when I come home, I get to be the one to place our daughter in my husband's arms.  That's a pretty powerful moment for me that gives me goosebumps.

Having traveled to Japan for a year back in my college days, I'm not afraid to travel alone to a country where I don't speak the language.  Once there, I will have guides at my disposal.  But I know Jay will have a hard time putting his wife on a plane and not seeing me for 2 weeks.  I hope I can borrow someone's laptop (I only have a 10 year old dog of a desktop PC that's packed up) so that I can update the blog and Skype with my family to remain connected.  And I hope my husband can enjoy the male bonding time with his sons before a certain little brown eyed girl comes home and steals his heart.

My visa application is being shipped to the courier service this week and I hope it gets returned to me soon.  It's always nerve-wracking to put your passport in the mail not knowing when you'll receive it again, but knowing you'll need it in a couple of months.

I'm hoping these next two weeks fly by quickly.   Between spring break and Easter, I think we'll be able to stay occupied.  But "Article 5" will always be in the back of my mind.

NVC Letter

When I got back home after a morning errand I found my NVC Letter in my inbox! What I was told would take 2-3 weeks only took 3 business days. The difference in timing is that I requested the letter be sent by email. Had we selected the postal service, that would have added processing and mailing time. Thankful for technology!

But technology also bites me in the big ol' behind today too. Our home study expired in November. All states are different, but NE will require an update before we go to China. Unfortunately, we cannot complete the update without an in-person meeting with our social worker. No phone calls, no Skype calls, no faxes or documents back and forth. It must be face to face. I'm beyond ticked off. This means I'll have to get back to NE for a 30 minute meeting. Ridiculous!!!

A friend is offering us frequent flyer miles to get me home but there will still be the added cost of the update. Please pray God provides all that we need. I trust Him to do exactly that. If any of my NE friends wouldn't mind picking me up at OMA and driving me home, I'd appreciate it. I don't suppose anyone has a spare vehicle I could borrow for less than 48 hours? I'll let you know when I plan to be home but it will probably be around mid/end-April.

NVC Cable (+plus+) My Heart in Bubble Wrap

We have been Cabled!  Our paperwork has been cabled (sent electronically) to the Consulate in Guangzhou.  Now we wait about 2-3 weeks for our NVC Letter from the National Visa Center.  It will be sent directly to us rather than our agency.  It could even be emailed and I will contact the National Visa Center in the coming days to request an emailed PDF so that nothing gets lost in the mail.

Please pray for no delivery hang-ups with our NVC Letter and that we could receive it in record time!!!

In the meantime, enjoy another post I wrote a while back.  I have also updated our Prayer Request Tab at the top of the page.


My Heart in Bubble Wrap

Do parents still send their college kids care packages anymore?  I remember opening my tiny mailbox at WSU, Japan and ISU (um, yes, I moved around a lot in college) and being excited to see a little slip of paper inside telling me I had a package waiting for me at the dorm office.  Something from home!  Something from MOM!

After we received our LOA, I sent my daughter in China a care package.  I hope she has received it.  Our agency did tell us to send it via UPS or FedEx so that we could track it, but they wanted $50 to send a package under 4 pounds.  The USPS said that we could send our package for under $20 by first class mail.  Um, much better on the wallet but I had to let go of the idea of tracking my package.  I guess I'll find out in a few months if she received it or not.

I loved putting it together!  I certainly didn't put anything of great monetary value inside since it might not even reach her, and if it does, there's no guarantee that the nannies at the orphanage will send the items back with her when we go to pick her up.  I found a cute polkadot blanket at Ross on clearance for $4.00.  And I found a small stuffed tiger in the dollar bins at Target (yes, the same one I wrote about in a previous post).  I bought one of those soft plastic toddler photo albums and filled it with pictures of all of us (even the dogs).  I picked up some packaged treats for the nannies.  And a friend from high school helped me translate 2 letters - 1 for my daughter and 1 for the nannies who have been raising her for the last year and a half.

What I had purchased that I later learned I couldn't send was a disposable camera (yes, they still make those things).  After sealing the package shut and filling out the Customs form, I learned that cameras aren't allowed into China.  Bummer!  Since we won't be able to make it to Hu Jing's hometown and orphanage, I had hoped that the nannies might find time to take a few pictures of the place for me: pictures of her home and pictures of her crib, her high chair, her favorite toys, her wonderful nannies who have loved on her.  I'm hoping I can connect with other families from my agency who are making the trip to the orphanage or who have gone ahead of us.  Perhaps they will share a picture or two.  Now, I've met some families who did send a camera and I don't know how they did it.  Perhaps it wasn't included on the Customs form.  But I didn't want to risk the entire package not reaching her, so I just took mine out.

I hope my package has reached my daughter.  And I hope she and the nannies love it as much as I loved putting it together.  Although I didn't spend a lot of money, I put my heart into that package, along with a few happy tears (I'm an expert at crying in public places now), sealed it up and shipped it overseas.

All for the love of my daughter.

I800 Approval! What's Next?

I did it. I risked it.

At one point in time my agency had told me not to contact our officer or anyone at USCIS for fear that "making waves" could slip our case to the bottom of the pile. Why on earth would I take that risk after everything we've been through, all the delays, the mishaps? Good question! But the new friends I'm making on a Facebook adoption group have said it doesn't hurt. Some have said that by sending a simple email has actually sped up their processes. If you need to know how to do this for your adoption, leave me a comment below and I'll send you the email address and you'll need your SIM#.

Well, it paid off! I received a reply email from our USCIS Officer and we are I800 Approved! The original Approval will be mailed to me for my records. I don't have to do anything with this original, but now that it has been processed and logged, it now goes to the National Visa Center (NVC) where Hu Jing's visa will begin it's process.

Those of you who haven't adopted must be shaking your heads at all the hoops we've had to go through to bring Hu Jing home. My mom doesn't get it, neither do my best friends (unless they are adopting too).

Nothing has gone according to schedule for us. NOTHING. AT. ALL. But we can still pray that it does from this point forward. Here's what it looks like from here on out IF all goes according to schedule...

• NVC Cable sent - should hopefully be sent this week (maybe next) from the National Visa Center (NVC) to the Consulate in Guangzhou
• NVC Letter received by us - 2-3 weeks later
• NVC Letter sent from our agency to China - within days of us receiving it and sending it to our agency
• Article 5 - a standard 2 weeks after NVC Letter is hand-delivered to the Consulate in Guangzhou (this is the only thing that is standard, folks - it gets dropped off on one day and then must be picked up exactly 2 weeks later. No earlier, no later.)
• Travel Approval (TA) - 2-3 weeks after Article 5 is picked up at Consulate and delivered to CCCWA (Chinese adoption authorities)
• Travel to China - 3-4 weeks after we receive approval

I know that's still clear as mud unless you're already up on the China adoption process. But hopefully it helps give you an idea of what's left. None of it is within our control nor do we have anything to do other than wait for the NVC Letter and then overnight it to our agency when it arrives (hopefully they will email me a PDF so that I can just forward the email to my agency immediately). I'll keep you updated as we check each bullet point off the list.

Now we wait for news of the NVC Cable. Continued prayers for smooth sailing ahead would be appreciated.

Tigers Everywhere!

Our home study addendum has been overnighted to USCIS and will be on their desk tomorrow.  Prayers appreciated for it's safe arrival and quick processing and NO MORE PINK NOTICES!  We now wait for our I800 Approval.  No clue how long the wait will be, but I'm hoping only a week or two.  And now on to a post I wrote a while back...

Our LifeGroup has been reading The Land Between by Jeff Manion.  I'm learning a ton and I highly recommend the book, even if I can't say it's a pleasant book because of the fact that we have been wandering The Land Between ever since August 6, 2010.

On that day, Jay was at the Leadership Summit at Willow Creek with a friend of ours, also adopting from Nepal at the time.  Jeff Manion had just given his message at the Summit about the Land Between, the difficult places in our lives.  Immediately following that session, the men turned their phones back on and received the news that the US Department of State had shut down all adoptions from Nepal.  Thus began our Land Between.  And we've been wandering ever since.

Our hardships in the land between have been tremendous, but the book does discuss God's blessings along the way.  There have been plenty!  Not only have many of you come through to help us financially (thank you again!) but at those exact moments when we think we can't go on, or when we question what the heck we are doing, God provides.  Some would call it mere coincidence and in the past, I would have totally agreed with you!  But after reading Choosing to See by MaryBeth Chapman and now The Land Between by Manion, I am convinced that these instances have not been mere circumstance, but blessings from God.  Just like God provided warm bread to Elijah in 1 Kings, God has provided us with various blessings.

You've read about my ladybug story (and there have been more in this past week while we're waiting for our addendum to be completed) and last week you read my penny story.  Now let me tell you another one.  Let's go back to the end of 2011.

The weekend of November 15 was awful for me.  The housing situation was just eating me alive!  A house in boxes, ready to go, living out of suitcases, an adoption hitting every roadblock imaginable and taking twice as long as it should, enough was enough.  Thanksgiving was right around the corner and I found it hard to be thankful for anything given our situation.  I was angry and sad.  

I walked into a friend's house one night that weekend and there were stuffed animal tigers everywhere.  And I mean everywhere - on the stairs, in the hall, posters on the wall in one of their boy's rooms - almost a dozen at least.  We hadn't shared our daughter's name and meaning with a soul at that point, so this definitely caught my eye.  God was certainly trying to get my attention.  "Let Me worry about the house.  Be thankful for your Quiet Tiger in China.  Be thankful for the daughter I have designed for you."  He had my attention and I was listening.

Once our LOA arrived and we slowly started to prepare for Hu Jing's arrival, I'd love to hit the clearance racks at Target for girl clothes.  I walked in couple of months ago with my youngest boy and we decided to swing through the dollar aisle first, something I normally do yet hadn't done in months and months.  Just when I thought there was nothing there we needed, no little girly toys I could take to China for my daughter, I spied a stuffed animal tiger that sat alone on the empty bottom shelf.  No other stuffed animals of any variety were to be seen in any of the dollar bins.  I looked.  I checked.  Just this one.  I picked it up and hugged it with joy, like a toddler girl myself and placed it in my red shopping cart.  I love my tiger!

And I'll tell you something, that one solitary tiger on an empty store shelf was not the only random, solitary tiger placed at random times.  I went back a few weeks later and my youngest begged to look through the toy aisles at the back of the store.  On our walk through the aisles browsing at toys for my boy's birthday wish list, there again on an empty toy shelf in Target was a lone tiger.  This time it was the hard plastic type with a fierce, growling face.  I didn't make the purchase but it caught my eye and I said a quick prayer for my Quiet Tiger and the rest of the process to get her home.

Want another story?  Leaving the office one day, after talking adoption details with my husband and signing and scanning and copying more adoption paperwork, I found myself driving behind a large SUV with the license plate "TIGER" (followed by 2 other letters that I don't recall).

There have been others too at Walmart, the grocery store, in TV commercials that have nothing to do with animals of any sort.  Tigers are everywhere!

God's blessings are everywhere in The Land Between.  We only need to look for them.

In God We Trust

I’ve never thought much about pennies, but I’m a mom of 2 boys, so when they see loose change lying in a parking lot, they get excited and quickly pick up their new found treasure.  Not too long ago I read this article, forwarded email, I don’t recall exactly what it was, about pennies.  Go to this link to read the whole story.  It's one of those kitschy, cute things, but something that obviously stuck with me.

The day we realized we’d have to jump through more hoops to get Hu Jing home was the day we declined the sadly low house offer.  I had woken in the dark, wee hours of the morning that day knowing that one or the other would come to an end.  Little did I know the day would end with both losses.  Don’t get me wrong, we haven’t lost our adoption, but we lost the hope that our daughter was coming home soon.  At one point, we were a solid 6-8 weeks away from travel and now we just don’t know when it will happen.  I don’t even want to take a guess as to when we’ll see her sweet face. 

That same afternoon my son came home from school missing his Chicago Bears lunch box.  He said he had looked in the classroom and in the lost and found and still didn’t find it.  My already depleted heart didn’t need more drama.  But we walked back up to the school, checked the classroom and then the lunchroom and found the item without too much trouble.  On the way back to the house a bright shiny penny laid heads up on the sidewalk.  I immediately heard the words, “In God we trust.”  I picked it up and put it in my pocket.  OK, God.  I’ll trust that You know what is best for all four of us, plus our waiting daughter.

Evening came and after the baked potato soup and pretzel bread rolls were scarfed down and the dishes in the dishwasher, I sat on the couch to fold wrinkly laundry.  On the arm of the couch was a penny.  This time it was a grimy old, tarnished, sticky yucky penny, the kind that makes you want to wash your hands immediately after you touch it.  Ick!  I asked if anyone knew how the penny had gotten there and no one knew. 

In God we trust. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I will react when I finally hold my daughter in my arms.  I don’t know what it will be like.  My typical calm, face-saving self might fly out the window as I sob happy tears while my daughter screams scared, frightened tears.  Yet maybe I’ll hold back my emotions so as to not scare my sweet daughter any further.  But I do know that I will feel such joy, such relief, such gratitude, and such overwhelming love.  Oh, how much more God must have felt when I became a child of His.  What joy, unspeakable joy!  I think about that first penny – bright and shiny, almost new, almost perfect.  I see it as God’s perfect plan of adoption, for He adopted us into His forever family and we are forever His!

But the second penny was a mess, ugly, rotten (if copper plated zinc could rot), almost unrecognizable.  I’d say that’s the way our adoption journey has been since day 1 and God knew it would be that way.   Yes, it’s ugly and gross, but underneath it all it still says, “In God we Trust.”

I may have an update for you in the next few days.  In the meantime, our agency did ask USCIS for an extension on our 45-day deadline as written on the February pink notice so that we could get all our clearances and fingerprints done for the homestudy update.  The latest from USCIS is that the extension will be most likely not be granted.  Our social worker has no choice but to send in the addendum.  A rough draft is at our agency and we are waiting on NE child abuse clearances to arrive before a final draft can be submitted.  Prayers appreciated for those to arrive immediately as our deadline is quickly approaching! 

In God we Trust.                                                                      

We’ll have to wait and see if USCIS will accept just the addendum and not the update our social worker insists we need.  Perhaps another pink notice will follow stating the need for the full update after all.  If that’s the case, our FBI prints are done and out for processing and those should arrive to our social worker within a couple of weeks.  If a full homestudy update will be needed, it will in essence be done and waiting in our back pocket so we won’t have to wait for a darn thing.  It’s frustrating beyond belief as we once again see another group of families leaving for China to pick up their kids in a matter of days.  Please know my heart that I am wholeheartedly thrilled and overjoyed for them and for their children who will no longer be orphans!!!  Yet I just don’t understand why such delays keep overrunning us like a convoy of Mack Trucks.   It’s all for a reason and I’m choosing to leave it in His hands.

In God we Trust.