What an AMAZING surprise!

What an amazing week this has been! Not only is every day one day closer to traveling to get Lily, but I feel like things have been going really well and coming together. man I have needed the good news that has been coming on the heels of so much anxiety and frustration.

On Monday I called our USCIS officer to request to be scheduled for new fingerprints. We have to do so because ours expire on August 10th and at this time we are unsure if we will travel by that date or not. We were really nervous that this might set us back and hold us up from travel if we couldn't get in quickly. I am so happy to report that officer Mariah was able to get us an appointment in just about a week and we should not be held up at all by this process!

As I was still riding on the relief and excitement of realizing that our fingerprint process would not hold us up when I saw an email in my inbox from my agency.  The title was "Strollers"....I was intrigued and proceeded to open the email.  As I read the words from my agency rep I realized that there were pics attached of some of the children in my daughter's orphanage! Apparently our agency had purchased 2 quad strollers for my daughter's orphanage in China and the orphanage had taken some pics of a few of the children enjoying them around the grounds and sent those pics back to our agency.  Chris, my agency rep, said in the email that she was sending these pics to a few of us who had children in the pics!! My heart skipped a beat at the thought that my baby girl was in those pics and not only that I would get to lay my eyes on her again, but that it also meant she had gotten to go out on a little stroll :)

Okay, so without further adieu, here are the pics....just look at those beautiful babies!!

 Inside Lily's orphanage - on their way outside! Our Liliana is in the second stroller - she is the older taller beautiful girl in the back right seat :)

There she is on the left (their right) - look how the little sweetie next to her is leaning on her shoulder. I think I even see a slight smile creeping on her face....she must be enjoying her little stroll outside! :)

And they even sent a close up of my baby girl!!!  

We are getting so close.....

Thank you all for your continued prayers! We are eternally grateful for everyone's support.

Love, 

Jessy (and family)

NVC letter & DS-260 completed!

What an exciting morning.... While checking my emails this morning I was so excited to see that our NVC confirmation email had come in in the overnight hours! What is that you ask?  It is our case number and invoice number from the National Visa Center that we have to have in order to proceed to the next step (and FINAL step with immigration on our end) called the DS-260. That is the online several page document that has to be filled out so that you can proceed with getting your Article 5 (also known as your final approval to adopt your child) and ultimately your Travel Approval from CCCWA

While we wait on our Article 5 to be issued (which will be exactly 2 weeks from now) we will work on getting our Visas issued for our travel to China. Things will be pretty hectic and busy between now and travel time. As we work through the visa process, begin to get packed and make sure our home is in order for us to be gone for 2 weeks while someone else comes in and takes over our home and the care of our kiddos and to bring a new daughter home! Then as soon as we have that Travel Approval we will be booking flights and making all the arrangements to fly to The People's Republic of China - whew!  

In addition, some sweet girlfriend's of mine are planning an "Adoption Shower" for our family during the first part of July. It is possible that I will know when we are traveling by the time we have that shower - that would be super exciting to be able to share with everyone! 

It will not be long before we will have Lily in our arms and ultimately home!  This should all happen in the next 30-60 days - deep breath; we are about the being living under the same roof with 5 children - Praise 
God!!! :)

And just for fun I wanted to post a couple of pics of some of the fun things I have been collecting for Lily......

I am obsessed with Etsy.com I think and have order plenty of personalized goodies for my kiddos...this is Lily's first :)

While reading a blog about another family that had adopted a 2 year old from China, I learned that it would be helpful to bring along a "mini" backpack that they would carry some of their own things in while you are sightseeing and traveling in China and on the planes, trains, etc.  I though that was a great idea so I order one for Lily with her name on it :)

With MUCH love ~

Jessy (and family :)

FINALLY....I-800 approval!!!

Well, after a 2+ week set back we are finally back on track!  Praise God :)

It as a very bumpy time period to say the least. Things went from bad to worse and Monday was the lowest of lows I had been at during this entire 3+ year long process. I learned that the package the USCIS Hague officer had been waiting on in order to approve us had been inadvertently sent to the wrong office at a different USCIS location in another STATE!!  I was devastated and couldn't believe what I was hearing. I did a lot of crying - sobbing really! - and praying Monday and yesterday and 5:10pm I had happy tears streaming down my face as I held the phone to my hear and the USCIS officer, Mariah,  told me that the new package we had to overnight yesterday had arrived safely in her hands. And the incredible words we have been waiting to hear from her, "you are approved"!!  Well "provisionally"anyway......

While this was what we have been waiting for over the last several weeks now the moment was bitter sweet. I cried....of course I cried! Happy tears mostly, but also tears of emotional exhaustion. I told Derek it felt much like it felt when I completed my first 1/2 marathon last year. The process was something I wanted to do, I had signed up for and new wasn't going to be easy, but I don't think I knew just how mentally and emotionally exhausting it would be on top of the physical pain and exhaustion. Once I crossed that finish line I felt such a sense of relief but it was quickly overcome by the sheer weight of everything that I had been "carrying" up until that finish.
I recognize that I should not feel this way about Lily's adoption. I should not be exhausted because I should be leaning into God through this and relying on His strength and not my own. After all this was His plan and He will see us through it. But for some reason I can't explain I just keep trying to take back control and take care of everything which is of course impossible and I know is the reason I feel so completely exhausted. When I rely on myself to "fix" everything it truly never works out - at least not for long.

So I am still working on letting go and "letting God" but it is a struggle for me. I would so appreciate prayers to help me with this. I could really use some peace and some rest and I know that He can give that to me if I will just accept it.
I really need to be putting my energy into loving and praying for Lily and not into worry and defeat. Lily is the one that is truly suffering and has endured heartache and suffering already in her young life that most of us will never (thankfully) understand.

So in my attempt to concentrate on positive things that we can do to move forward we took our oldest son, Montana ("Tanner") to apply for his Passport yesterday. We should have that back in about 3 weeks - yay!  What an exciting thing for us to be able to do together. We are just so excited to be able to take him with us to get Lily and he is so excited about going.

So next steps really just involve a bunch more forms and officials desks and waiting as our immigration paperwork files through NVC (National Visa Center) so that we can forward everything to CCCWA and get our travel approval from them to come get our daughter! We should be about a month away from getting that approval as long as we don't run into any more "hiccups".  Please continue to pray with us and claim our belief that the rest of this process will run smoothly and we will be bringing Lily home very very soon!

"When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of "your perfect plan" means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the "show me a sign" or "this is a sign" or "this must mean God is closing a door" or "God must not be in this because it is hard," but all that is garbage. You know what's hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will."

--Jen Hatmaker

With Love, 

Jessica & family

Looking for some miracles!

So about 2 weeks ago I updated everyone with some great new pics of Lily and I let you know that we had just sent all our paperwork in to USCIS for our immigration approval and the ability to be able to travel to China to bring Lily home. Unfortunately we have had a set back. Since our home study was more than 6 months old (by about 12 days - the forms were actually filed when the study was still "good", too - ugh!) the USCIS officer denied our application pending an updated home study be submitted. Needless to say this is an upsetting delay.  While we are here doing more paperwork our daughter stays in China needing surgery and her family. It is so hard to accept this.

I learned about this issue this past Friday (today is Monday) and had to go through the entire weekend with no answers. The agency could not tell me exactly what we were going to have to do because we had to wait to hear from the immigration department. That left us waiting all weekend in limbo and not knowing how "bad" of a set back this may be. I spent much of this weekend  - specifically Friday - in tears and in prayer. The pain of not being able to get to your child is real. The nonsense of the paperwork and red tape that keep you from getting there can be maddening. As I spent time in reflection and conversation with God about our road to Lily I was reminded of all the families who have gone through this and will go through this same process. Many of those families that have been through much more than this and in the end everything works out.  I am so sad at the addition of time that this issue will add to our wait to get Lily, but I am also thankful that at least we are continuing to move forward and we will be going to get her sometime in the near future.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Prov. 3:5&6

So early this morning my agency did call me to let me know they had a game plan as to how we would get what USCIS needed and get things moving as quickly as possible. Unfortunately we have the further complication of our "fingerprints" expiring on August 10th which means if we do not get our Embassy appointment in China prior to that date we will have to re-applying for our fingerprinting as well. This process is very costly (we have already done it 3 times in the last 3 years!) and can take weeks to complete. We were looking like that wouldn't be an issue until finding out about our need to get an updated home study which has now added an unknown amount of time to our process that my agency believe will almost certainly not have us traveling in time. Unfortunately this is all out of our hands so we continue to pray and move things along as best we can on our end.
In addition she told us that she had spoken to our social worker, Karla, who would be in contact with us and we were hoping that we would be able to send everything in to immigration by early next week. I was just in tears hanging up the phone with her. Looking at the time line I was realizing that there is just no way humanly possible we can pull this off in time to make our August deadline.  Again, all I could do was pray. The only way this could work is literally by a miracle  - God has to move mountains for us!

Not long after speaking with our agency I was on the phone with Karla. She is an incredibly sweet woman who has become very close to us over the last few years. She has completed a total of 4 home studies for us - yes, FOUR in just under 3 years! That includes and completed post adoption study where she met with us once a month for 6 months after Gabby was born.  We have truly been blessed by Karla and she was about to tell me how once again she was going to go to bat for our family. As we spoke she made it clear that she intended to get out to our home in the next 24hrs and that she would have her report ready for me almost immediately so that we could overnight everything we needed to immigration. As a matter of fact she will be out tomorrow morning at 7am so she can meet with us all before the kids have to leave for school! Again, I was in tears.....happy grateful tears. To Karla and to our Heavenly Father for showing me that things will happen in His time and not based on whatever timeline a person or an agency gives me. What I was told would be at least a week is sounding like it will be completed in about 2 days!  I understand that is a long way from traveling to China still, but I also know that is mountain #1 coming down! :)

"Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure." Psalm 147:5

There are many more hurdles that we have to get over in the next few weeks, but I am confident that we will get through it all just fine and to Lily quickly - better yet, in God's perfect timing. I will continue to petition Him and pray for the desires of my heart in hopes that He will answers those prayers but I know that if He chooses another way it is because father knows best :)

I will continue to keep you updated on our progress and how God is showing us His modern day miracle working. I also ask that you would continue to join us in prayer that we would continue to be able to see this through as smoothly as possible. And pray that Lily would be growing stronger as she waits for her medical care and not weaker. Love is a powerful force and I pray that our love is supernaturally reaching her already and bringing about a real change in her. When I look at the pictures we have been sent of her - the ones from her referral which were before she had a family and the ones we were sent just since she has learned of her family - they are in such stark contrast! It is hard to deny that she looks more alive and vibrant in the latter!

Blessings!
Jessica & Family