Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful Christmas we have had. We are exhausted but have enjoyed being with all of our family very much. I wish all my friends and family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

With much love!

Tammy

GOOD NEWS!!!!!

What a great Christmas present I got today! I got an email from the NBA (us government) and they have approved our I-800! They mailed our approval today. It has been taking 90 days or more for people to get their approvals but it only took us 70 days! God is so good! All of our paperwork is complete and I will start copying, scanning and getting our state seals. It should be in the mail to go to the Bethany headquarters by the end of next week and then it will go on to the Chinese Consulate to be translated and then to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) which is when we will get our Log-In date. It is then that we will officially be waiting for our Madison!

Thanks to everyone who has prayed! Keep praying that there are big changes in 09. Tammy

We are one step closer to bringing you home sweet baby girl!!!

CCAA Update

There was an update posted today on Bethany's site. The CCAA sent out referrals for 5 days. They are now to March 06. Any progress is good for me.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks. I had to go to Bloomington, IL for a week for work and it was so cold, but they had some beautiful snow. Last Thursday was Corey's 15th birthday. I cannot believe it. I feel like I just brought him home. We took the day off and went and got his driving permit and went to lunch. We had a lot of fun together. We also got a beautiful snow Thursday night. What a great birthday present for Corey. He drove me around all day and did great. I am so proud of him and the person he is. He is just so well-rounded, smart, and of course very handsome! He is going to do great things one day!

We also had our Christmas party for our small group this weekend and that was a great time too. I feel very blessed to have great friends. Christmas is just a week away and I still have shopping to do. I will finish up this weekend hopefully.

That is all for now!

Tammy

Thanksgiving

Still no form! I did talk to the USCIS and our fingerprints cleared and he said we are just waiting for our final approval.

We decorated our house yesterday for Christmas! This is a first for us. We always decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. It looks really pretty! I was thinking about Thanksgiving and eveything that I have. I just have to stop thank God for so many blessings he has given me. I have a wonderful husband who works hard, loves us very much and is crazy about our boys. I have two very beautiful, sweet healthy, good boys (even though they can really try me sometimes). Me and Tommy both have wonderful parents and family and friends. We have a beautiful home, nice things and food in our cabinet, and jobs to go to everyday. And hopefully very soon, we will have a wonderful little Chinese daughter to love! I could go on and on and when I really start to think about everything in my life, I am in awe of how God continues to bless us. As our pastor has talked about the last couple of weeks, we truly are rich!

It is also with a heavy heart that I go into the holidays. I feel like our family is incomplete and it is hard to not have Madie at home and to not know how many more Thanksgivings we are going to have to wait for her. I continue to tell myself, it is all in God's time, but it is still very hard. There is a verse that God led me to and sometimes when I really start to feel things are never going to happen I read it. It is Habbakuk 2:3 and it says, " But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfiilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed".

My little Madie,
I just want you to know that this Thanksgiving we don't know when we will get to bring you home, but we are very thankful that God knows and that it will be just at the right time! I have imagined and dreamed of you so much! You are already a part of me and you hold a piece of my heart forever. I pray that you always know just how much we have loved you from the very start. This journey started for me four years ago and my love has just grown more and more everyday. My prayer is that you will change the world one day. I know that you have already changed me and your not even here yet! I love you! Mommy

Referral Update from CCAA

Bethany posted today that CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) only did 2 days of referrals this month, which put them through Feb. 17th, 2006. All applications through Feb. 28th 2007 are through the review room. I just hope that the rumors are true and something happens at the first of the year and there is a speed up! Still no I171 yet. I am just still in hopes of getting it this month.

That's all for now!

Tammy

Fingerprints - Election

Finally! Yesterday we went for our fingerprinting. I talked to our agency today and she seems to think we will get our I171 back fairly soon. I am still hoping for December for our DTC (Dossier to China). The monthly update from the CCAA should be posted by next week. Hopefully the number of days for referrals increased. I read where the drop out rate is pretty high right now because of the wait. I hope that did not sound bad. I want every child in China to go to their forever home! I understand, but we are in it for the long haul!!! Hopefully 2009 will have big changes.

Well, history was made yesterday. The first African-American President was voted into the White House, Barack Obama. It is such a confusing time in our country right now. At times I feel we are more divided now than we have ever been as a country. The one thing that I do know is God is in complete control and knew long before yesterday who would be elected. I serve an almighty, all-knowing, soverign God, and I put complete Faith in him, not one man. And though it is our duty and a privilege to vote as citizens, God has an ultimate plan!

That's all for now, off to sleep! Thanks to everyone who has commented! It is so much fun to read them and to know someone is listening to these ramblings.

Tammy

Update

Well, we finally received our letter with our appointment to get fingerprinted. We go on November 4th at 9 am. That means we are one step closer to sending our paperwork. I am looking for her bedding and stuff for her room now. I cannot wait to get started on that! Maybe that will keep me occupied and from going stir crazy. I have so many ideas and there is just so much out there to choose from. I do know that I am going with pink/brown. I have already bought clothes, I just hope they all fit. I bought Madie her first bracelet this last weekend. It is just so much fun to buy girl stuff! The boys keep telling me she already has more clothes than they do.

I have really been wandering if Madie has been conceived yet. I just get butterflies thinking that she very well could be growing! I just pray for her and her mother's health during this time. I often think about who her birth parents are and what they are like. Oh how they must feel to have to give her up. I will be forever grateful to them for keeping her and for God allowing us to have her. As a mother, I can't imagine making that decision.

Madie, I can't wait to hold you in my arms and see your beautiful face! Me, your daddy and your brothers are all getting more excited everyday thinking about you. I know that you are going to capture the hearts of many people. I don't know how long we will have to wait for you to come home, but I pray that it is very soon. I will wait an eternity if I have to. I love you very much! Mommy

Another restless night!

Well, another night of sleeplessness. I am just so anxiously waiting on our appointment letter to get fingerprinted. I am praying we get it this week. They are sooooo slow!!!!!! I have really had a tough week, it just seems as though I will never get our paperwork to China. If you read this please pray for this to happen soon! Goodnight for now!

USCIS

We got a letter in the mail Saturday from the USCIS saying they forwarded our application on, and now we wait for our fingerprinting letter. Progress is so nice!

Madison has been heavy on my heart and mind today. I wonder if her birth mother is pregnant with her yet? I really feel that she is. I just pray for hers and Madie's health. It is really strange to love Madie as much as I do my boys, which I gave birth to. The only explanation that I have to offer anyone, is that it is a love put there by God so strongly that you feel as if your heart is going to just explode sometimes. Just as child birth, adoption is a miraculous thing. Madie, mommy loves you so very much and we can't wait to bring you to your home and give you all the love that you can stand!

Everyone has asked if we have a picture, and of course we don't yet. But we do have an ultrasound!

The process begins!

Of course, as soon as I got the "OK" I had waited on so long, I had our preliminary application sent off immediately, June 24th 2008. We go our pre-approval and sent off our formal application on August 4th. We started answering all of our millions of questions, which Tommy was not a fan of, doing our drug screenings, taking the boys to do their physicals and all of the other fun stuff. On August 13th, we scheduled our psych evaluation, and that was a whole lot of fun! We had to do a 1 hour evaluation and then answer hundreds of more questions on paper. Tommy was really about ready to scream by then. On August 21st, we were told we were not crazy and that we could proceed with our interviews and homestudy. We did all of our interviews, online trainings, a homestudy paperwork, and then on Tuesday September 8th we had our home visit and were officially approved. Whoo Hoo! Now the real fun begins. We mailed the dreaded I-800A off to get approved to bring an orphan into the United States on Sept. 15th. Well, 1 week later, to my surprise, I got it back in the mail. I forgot to put our birth certificates in there! I could have smacked myself. I had to send that back off, and now we wait to get our appointments to be fingerprinted. That is where we are at now and this was definately the short version. Amy once had a title "adoption is not for sissies" and boy was she right. Please pray that this next phase moves quickly and we can get our Dossier to China by the end of October. Things are starting to look a little promising on the China side. They did nine days of referrals last month, which is double the amount they have been doing.

The Beginning

Well, where do I start? This journey began about 4 years ago, when I had this un-explainable desire for a little girl, and because we cannot have anymore children, I knew that I wanted to adopt. Not only did I want to adopt, but I knew I wanted to adopt from China. Tommy was definately not at the place I was at. He was very adamant that it was not going to happen now or in the future. My desire continued to grow and grow until it totally consumed me. I prayed and prayed to understand all of this. Tommy continued to say "no" and my heart continued to break more and more. I thought ok, I will start to pray for God to take all of this away, the hurt, the desire, and every other emotion I had gone through with this. Well, guess what? That didn't happen either. The more I prayed the more I wanted to adopt. I thought this is so cruel, because Tommy was still no where close to feeling like I did. I then tried to take matters into my own hands by really putting the pressure on him and resorting to some not very nice tactics. But, then my mother said something to me that made me realize I had to stop. She said, "you cannot change his heart, only God can, and you do not want to do this if it is not God's will". So it was then that I just continued to pray and pray and pray some more that his will be done in our lives and turned my faith over to God. It was very hard, and I have never gone through anything like that in my whole life. I felt like my heart would never heal, because I already loved a child that I didn't even know if I would ever have. Well, little did I know, but God was busy at work on Tommy. We started going to FBC Smyrna about 2 years ago, and at that time our pastor, Pat Hood and his wife Amy, were waiting on their daughter, Jadyn from China. I truly believe, that God put us there and used them and their journey to change our lives and Tommy's heart. In May of this year, Tommy told me that he was ready, and felt that adopting is what he thought we should do and that God had revealed this to him over the last year. I absolutely could not believe it. Praise God! I thank him everyday for his perfect timing, and he has taught me so many things over the last 4 years (especially patience, which I know to never pray for). I know that he has a very special little girl picked out for us, and we had to wait until it was time to start "Our Journey to Madie". Thanks for going along and praying us through every step of the way.