Happy 7 month birthday, Eliza Minqiu

Tonight Jackson looked up and saw the "HUGE full moon!". We talked about how Eliza is looking at the same moon as us. Soon we'll be together.

2nd Call

Today we got an email from our agency with an estimated date of travel -- 5/20. Yaaaahoooo! We also got the paperwork to apply for our Chinese Visas. I have our appointments all lined up for our shots but I've been putting off making Jackson's appointment with his pediatrician. Isn't it hard enough to stop being the baby in the house? Shots, too?!?!

Mei Mei (little sister in Chinese)

This morning I overheard this conversation...

Lulu "It's momma's birthday soon"
Jackson "Happy birthday Momma"
Lulu "Do you want me to sleep over when Momma goes out for her birthday?"
Jackson "I want my baby sister to sleep with me because she's my mei mei"

The Joys of Technology

Throughout this long wait I have spent a lot of time on-line reading blogs and doing research on adoption and parenting.  At some point I stumbled upon a site called www.redthreadchina.com that delivers gifts to your child and her orphanage in the time between referral (when you get her picture) and TA (when you are approved to travel).  I've been trying to think of as many ways as possible to make this event a little less traumatizing in Tong Min Qiu's life.  Her care is overseen by her orphanage but she is being raised by a foster family in an extremely rural part of China ( I will post more about Tonggu, the Jiangxi province, and her daily life with her foster family as we know it very soon).   They have rarely seen Westerners, and we've been told that if you decide to take the 4 hour bus ride on bumpy dirt roads up the mountain to her village you will be followed everywhere - even into the bathroom (oh, and it's not a Western bathroom).  So, I decided to send a photo album of our family in the hopes that her foster mother will show her our photos and she'll be a little less freaked out when she meets us.  This decision has led to us to Ann - a wonderful woman in China who does all the work of gathering the perfect gifts, labeling photos in Chinese, and translating a letter to our daughter and all her caretakers.  Once she started preparing our gift she made contact with our orphanage and to our amazement sent us updated photos and measurements of Min Qiu.   Thanks to Ann we were able to send a gift but what we got back in return was priceless.

Seven Months Old

I will explain more later but here are some pictures of Tong Min Qiu from yesterday at 7 months.  She is pictured with her foster mother in one of the photos.

Spicy Autumn Girl

Tong Minqiu (meaning:  Autumn, Clever)
Birthdate:  9/16/2010
From: Tonggu, Jiangxi Province
Oh, that smile.

The waiting is the hardest part

Okay, so after waiting 5 1/2 years you'd think another 24 hours would be cake. Well, it's not! We just heard from our social worker that our referral is being translated from Chinese to English. Tomorrow we may get a call telling us who our daughter is -- and then we will see her picture for the first time. This is going to be a LONG twenty-four hours.

March 16th

3/16 is the birthday of 2 of the most incredible girls I know, my nieces. It is also the day the CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) started matching families for this next batch of referrals. We are in this next group of families. Lucky us. Lucky day.