Dear Family and Friends

Dear Family and Friends:

First, I know a number of people have asked about meeting us at the airport when we arrive home, and the answer is yes! We will be so excited to see anyone who can meet us at the gate and welcome our new family of three home. Please check out and join our Facebook group "Jet Landing" for detailed flight information. If you do plan to greet us at the gate, we ask that you please do not touch or show affection to Jet as well as limit direct eye contact and communication with him. Remember, this little guy will have had a lot of new experiences in a very short period of time and in addition most likely tired, overstimulated, and scared.

Please keep reading to see how you can help us in the coming weeks...

Derek and I are beyond thankful for the love and support you have all shown us thus far. We are so excited to welcome Jet into our family and know that you are too. We recognize the changes coming our way, especially those for little Jet, and after a lot of thought, prayer, and research we'd appreciate your help and support in the future to make sure Jet's transition to our family is complete. While some of the ways we parent will be the same as parenting a biological child, there will also be some differences. We realize that some of these methods may be unfamiliar to many of you, but we ask that you respect our decisions. It is not our desire to cause any hurt feelings, but I think we can all agree that we all want what's best for Jet!

Our main priority is for Jet to feel safe and secure in his new environment and to learn to trust us as his new parents. That may sound strange--why wouldn't he trust us? After all, by the time we get home, we will have been his sole caregivers for almost two weeks! Plus, he's so young! Surely he will adjust quickly!

That may be true--he will trust us to an extent to meet his basic needs. Please remember however, that just like a newborn and caregiver are starting from the very beginning, we too are starting at the "beginning" with Jet. Adoption is traumatizing regardless of age! New parents, hotel rooms, airplane, more hotels, more planes, cars, new house, new room, new foods, new smells, new clothes, new routines...I could go on but I'm sure you get the drift. Jet needs to know that whatever his needs are, we, as his parents, will be the ones to meet them.

To do that, we will be limiting the number of visitors and his interactions with new people and experiences. In fact, for the first two weeks or so that he is home he won't be leaving the house! If you do plan to drop off a meal or grocery shop, as I know many of you have signed up to do (Thank you!!) please just come to the door and one of us will meet you there. After those two weeks or more if he needs it are up we will slowly start to introduce him to new experiences. For example, we may attempt church on a Sunday and if that goes well then head for groceries on Monday. If not, then we will stay home again for a few days.

Up until now, you may be thinking that Jet will be terribly withdrawn and shy and scared of his shadow but actually, many families experience the opposite. Jet may be friendly, outgoing, extroverted, etc. Children in orphanages are used to going to an adult--any adult--and asking for what they need. This means when you do come to visit or we see you somewhere, he may walk up to you and ask to be picked up or for a drink or a snack or rocked or any number of things--and, here is where we desperately need your help--please do not do any of those things and redirect him to either Derek or me. I know. I just asked you to not help or hug or kiss the cute toddler and go against everything you know to be true in this world. But please, remember again, that Jet needs to learn who his parents are and what parents do.

Please also remember that there is no time limit and this too shall pass! Some children can be well-adjusted within a few months and some may take a year--regardless of age! There will not be a "The ban has been lifted!" announcement free-for-all party at our place announcing that Jet is "fully attached!" No, it will be more of a gradual process most likely filled with a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of progress. Honestly? Our hope is that it's so gradual no one will even notice and in a few months, or a year, or whatever it takes, he will be a happy and well-adjusted little boy who knows he has family and friends who love him.

By no means are we implying that we are experts on the subject of attachment! I am 100% positive there will be times we mess up, but--in addition to everything else we're asking you--please show us some grace? It's our first time as parents, you know! If you want to read about this "Cocooning" method further, there are a number of books about the subject (Recommended reading: The Connected Child)  and any number of blog posts from "been there done that" families. Thank you for your understanding and help while we all try to get used to our new normal!

Current Events

That smirk though!

Four times now I've tried to finish this post on current events, only to have our "happening now" suddenly become old news. I've decided though I'm just going to go with what's happening exactly right now! 

In case you missed the big news, please meet Jet (Jordan Ezekiel)!
Let me tell you a little bit about him, if you're interested (and of course you are)! He is 15 months old (tomorrow) and post-operative for major congenital heart defects--more surgery or other medical interventions may be needed but we won't know that until we see the doctors here. We were matched with him at the beginning of March and received an unexpected update this past week along with another earlier in the month. It's rather strange actually, because all we know about him--his likes, dislikes, and personality--can be condensed into just a few short sentences. It seems like our boy doesn't like dolls and is afraid of strangers, introverted yet affectionate. He's a big fan of snacks--vegetables and bananas and mashed apples and stuffed steamed buns. My personal favorite is that he "does not like orange." I'm not sure if they mean the color or the fruit, but there will be no orange in this house--flavored or otherwise. Derek liked the "when he cries, he does so very loudly and sometimes he has a quick temper." Sounds like a toddler! Most importantly though, he is healthy and is receiving phenomenal care at a private foster care facility, which we could not be more thankful for.

Recently, I was speaking with someone right after we were matched about how important prayer was and is during this whole long process. They were under the sincere impression that our prayers have been answered--and that it was no longer necessary for prayers for us and Jet. I'd like to say I handled my response with tact and grace, but in reality I laughed, a lot, and may or may not have questioned their sanity.

Being matched is not the end my friends. We are ready to meet our son, but there are so many things that need to be accomplished before that can happen. We thank you for the prayers thus far that have been said for Jet and for us, and we continue to ask that you'll remember all three of us in the coming weeks and months, especially in these specific concerns that have been on our hearts lately:

1) Paperwork. There are still some immigration and travel/visa that need to be completed, and we ask that you'd pray with us that everything goes through successfully and also patience on our end. Mostly, for patience. Here are the remaining steps, and timelines, if you're interested:

• Article 5 Drop off (this coming week): Article 5 is letter issued telling China we're eligible to adopt Jet and that he can enter and permanently reside in USA.
• Article 5 Issued (two weeks after drop off)
• Travel Approval (two days to three weeks after Article 5 is received): The CCCWA (China)'s formal invitation to travel to complete the adoption. 
• Travel to China (10-21 days after TA)

2) Finances, also known as the touchy subject. We're getting down to crunch time when the majority of our expenses are coming due. We ask for prayers that we're wise in our spending and in our saving and to know our priorities. We're still selling puzzle pieces to help cover the cost of our airfare, which you can learn more about here. Please, please pray with us that the remaining pieces will be sold and for people to want to get involved.

3) Jet. Knowing that he is afraid of strangers and the major changes that he will be going through in the coming weeks and months hurts our hearts. At some point before we get him, he will be moving from his foster care nanny, with whom he has spent most of his young life, to the Social Welfare Institute (SWI, or orphanage) of the city in which he was born. As you can imagine, this would be overwhelming enough, but add in the fact that he will then meet more strangers who will take him to the other side of the world and overwhelming turns to traumatizing. Remember, as uncomfortable and nervous and out of our element Derek and I will feel, we know what's going on. Jet doesn't, and so we pray that his adjustment and transition to being a part of our family will be as smooth as possible.

If you have any questions, at all, please ask! We'd love to answer them--or try to. We're not experts by any means. Thank you all, again, for your support and for caring about our little family of three. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but we could not do it without prayer. Thank you.

Making a List

Right after I started cleaning out the refrigerator this afternoon I decided that blogging sounded like much more fun, so here we go. It's not a super exciting post--just a catch-you-up on our fall happenings.

We've been working down (and across) our list of document requirements provided by the agency. As you can see, there really isn't much left that needs to be done for our dossier prep! Right now, the majority of our paperwork is being authenticated by the U.S. Department of State; once we get those back then we send the documents to the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. to be authenticated.

You might have to squint to see it, but there are two line items that are pretty blank. Last night we were checking our list of what still needed to be done and realized we had somehow completely skipped one of the documents--whoops! Plenty of time to get that done. We're also waiting on approval from USCIS/immigration, which is the other big blank space on our To-Do list. Once all of those blanks are checked for each document, then we send to CCAI for critical review before it all goes off to China. If you want to feel really cool and special, I'd recommend you brush up on your adoption alphabet soup, so you can say fun things like "So once you're DTC, how long before you're LID?" or "I'm so excited you're LOA! That was the shortest time ever from your LOI!" Just a side note, once our dossier completion is only the beginning...nothing can happen until that's done!

If you're interested, here's a list of everything!

So what else has been happening? Well, we went to Florida for a last trip before our Next Big Trip to China. We had planned to go to Seattle, the Rockies, or San Diego...but both of us just wanted to sleep, eat, and sit on the beach. If you have never, ever been to Seaside, you need to go. Best beach vacation ever. But...more on all that at a later date.

Shortly after we got back from Florida, we went camping at Starved Rock with our friends Clint and Jessica. You may remember our last (and only) camping experience (see here if you need a refresher), so I was skeptical to say the least...the very least. 

But, it didn't rain, the weather was beautiful, we were close to the restrooms that included showers, and we went hiking and to a couple wine tasting rooms. It was a win-win for everyone! The worst thing that happened was that my nutella fry-pie burnt to a cinder block. We'll take it!

We're still working on fundraising for the adoption, and we're so thankful to everyone who has helped out so far! A few highlites:

• We had a Pampered Chef fundraiser around the beginning of October that raised over $200 that went to our account with our agency. Thank you to everyone who came--my aunts even drove down from Chicago to come! 
• Tomorrow I'm having a Noonday Collection Trunk Show with 10% of purchases going to our agency! (Click here if you're interested in purchasing!). Every little bit helps!
•  My sister also made a bunch of these ornaments (below)--there's only a few left I think! Amazing! 
• Last but not least, we've sold over 60 puzzle pieces so far. Again, words cannot express how thankful we are to every single person who has contributed so far. Yes, indirectly you're helping us, but ultimately you're helping a child receive a family. 

Last but not least, Derek is hard at work fixing up the bedroom and making furniture for the baby/toddler/child (we really don't know what to call him/her). I don't want to steal his thunder because he's been taking pictures every step of the way, but here's a teaser photo of the room. Hopefully we will be able to move the table saw out before we're home from China. Casey has learned to adapt to the noise level by cowering as far away as possible at night and sleeping all day long to recover. What a life! 

So that's it. Enough of my ramblings, it's time to actually finish cleaning out the fridge. Next week we have our fingerprinting/biometrics appointment up in Chicago, so check back with us soon to find out if we've been approved or not!