Still Waiting

This is incredibly frustrating - in early August, we were told we'd get the letter from China "in three weeks" and still nothing. It's like the emotional roller-coaster we were on when we adopted Harry five years ago, with ups and down, twists and turns.

Harry, for his part, loves roller coasters. When we went to Six Flags Wild Safari this past Sunday, we enjoyed the animals and our car survived an ostrich trying to eat it.

Harry, of course, only had eyes for Nitro, a coaster that goes about two hundred feet straight up and two hundred feet straight down. Just looking at it made our stomachs whimper in terror. Proving we are old fogies, Jacquie and I steadfastly refuse to go anywhere near the thing, and make it very clear that he will go on it only when he's big enough to go on by himself.

In the meantime, Xiao-Ling's room continues to take shape. Harry and I built her bookshelf and began stocking it with overflow books from the shelf in his room. We're looking for a dresser and desk and will get sheets for her bed as soon as we get the word from China - whenever that is.

More as it develops...

A Few Changes

Our agency, Children's Hope International in St. Louis, has told us that we can't use Xiao-Ling's photo or put in anything identifying about her until we get the official letter from China and we have officially replied that we do indeed want her as our daughter. So I did a little scrubbing and CHI says the blog is now good to open up to the world.

I was looking at the official CHI blog and it has an entry on the PBS show Arthur. It seems that the character of Binky is not only getting a little sister on this Friday's episode, she's being adopted from China! I told Harry about it and said I want to see the show with him, only to have him waver between not wanting to see it at all and not wanting to see it with me.

And speaking of Harry, he just came in and wanted to add a few words:

i love mei-mei and frogs and everything

He's feeling a little conflicted about this whole process, which is understandable. He's getting a little sister but at the same time he will no longer be the only child in our family. We have been talking with him and trying to get him involved as much as possible. We built his sister's bed together and will build her bookshelf together as well.

More to come...

A Blog Begins

Welcome to the "Bringing Xiao-Ling Home" blog! As we go to and travel throughout China to bring our daughter Xiao-Ling home, this will chronicle our journey for the benefit of family, friends, colleagues and others who want to follow along. We'll keep it updated as much as we can with text and photos.

So what's happening right now? Well, we renewed our passports - and a big shout out to the staff at Rep. Rush Holt's office, who no doubt helped to cut the turnaround time to only ten days from mailing to receipt - got our travel guide and are getting an idea of our itinerary.

What we're waiting for now is the referral - the official document that asks if we want to adopt her as opposed to someone else. (Fat chance!) Our adoption agency says we should get it soon, and we are waiting with bated breath. Once we actually get the referral, we can get our visas from the Chinese consulate in New York and make our travel plans. We've already learned that Continental flies nonstop from Newark to Beijing and back, which will make things easier.

More updates as they happen!