She has a name and Finding Ad!

On Christmas, we finally named our sweet baby in China!   Her name is Vivienne Shan Yu. I fell in love with this name a while back.  We went back and forth about whether or not to keep her Chinese middle name.  In the end, we decided that it will be nice for her to have the name she was called for most of her first year of life.  It will also be a piece of where she is from.

Our Article 5 was delivered to the Chinese Consulate in Guangzhou this Thursday! It will be issued and sent to the CCAA on February 10th, after Chinese New Year.  We will be officially waiting for Travel Approval as of the 10th!!!  That usually takes an average of two weeks to get TA.  We hope to travel in late March, but that's still anyone's guess! 

We ordered her finding ad and got this sweet picture of her from when she was only four days old.  We got the actual newspaper that she was in sent to us as well.  We found out that she was left in a flower bed at a tea factory.  You see, in China, sadly, mothers do not have the freedoms that women in America have.  If they cannot afford to pay a fee keep their second child, they are often abandoned. In some provinces, they are easing up on this rule.  They also need to have a boy to support them when they are elderly. At the same time, it is against the law to bring your child you cannot keep to an orphanage.  That is why the mother has no choice but to abandon the baby.  It is a brave choice. She chose life for Vivienne.  I cannot imagine how hard that must have been for her.

 This ad was posted in the newspaper and it is a picture of her when she was only four days old on the day she was found.  It is so nice to have, because it might be the only baby picture we get of her.  And she has hair!!!  We can't wait to meet her!

I-800 Approval and a Package to China!

Today we got our I-800 approval!  That means we are just a couple steps away from Travel Approval.  We are hoping to travel sometime in March. 

The week after Christmas, we sent a package to her orphanage!  We sent a very special book that my sister in law gave us and some chocolate for the orphanage staff.  The book has about ten pages of questions about our baby's life so far.  Each page of questions is written in English and in Chinese.  It asks questions about her development, her likes and dislikes, "firsts" and information about the day she was found. You can find the book here: http://www.sharpbooks.com/ We have high hopes that the orphanage staff will give us some information, but our orphanage has a reputation of being very private and not sharing information about the children.  They also don't give updates.  We know that she was in the orphanage until Thanksgiving, but we aren't sure if she is still there or she is in foster care.  The Kunming orphanage has a great foster care system.  No matter where she is, we pray everyday that she is getting loved and held.

Hand in Hand Christmas Party

Last Friday night we went to our adoption agency's Christmas party.  They had asked for children of the adoptive families to perform musically, read poetry, etc.  Our kids were thrilled to perform.  The boys all played their Christmas songs on the piano and Sydney played Jingle Bells on the violin.  They were a bit intimidated at the auditorium size, the amount of people watching and the "spotlight" when we first walked in, but in the end they played right through their songs just fine, nerves and all!  Afterwards, we treated them to an ice cream at Mc D's for being brave.

These are the smiles of some relieved kids!

LOA Celebration

I got my cake as promised!  John and Mitchell did a great job.  Last night we celebrated LOA with Mom Mom and Pop Pop.  The arrow is pointing to city of  Kunming where Shan Yu lives. 

LOA!

On Monday, we got LOA!  This is the Letter of Acceptance from China!  Yesterday we went to our adoption agency's office and signed the letter confirming our decision to adopt.

There is an LOA cake coming this weekend!  Mitchell has promised!  We are so thrilled to be one step closer to our little Shan Yu.  We hope to have her English name picked out soon! 

Thanksgiving Surprise!

We woke up today to a Thanksgiving surprise!  We got an email from an adoptive family who visited Shan yu's orphanage yesterday.  They got to see her!  They said she was in an exercise room on a mat playing with toys and that she looked great!!!! She said she was very alert and smiled at them : ) The family wasn't allowed to take a picture of her but she did find her crib and got a picture of it.  She also said the room she was in looked clean and nice and that they're taking good care of her. 

The children in our orphanage usually go to foster care around six months old.  She is six months old now, so she will probably go to live with a foster family until we travel to get her. 

We are so thankful to have any information about her because her orphanage does not give updates.  The neat thing is that I "met" the adoptive Mom on our yahoo group two days before she left for China.  She emailed me from the airport and asked me to send her Shan yu's name in Chinese.  I'm giving God the credit for this little gift.  It sure does make waiting a little easier to get an update...or maybe harder!

Happy Thanksgiving.

We have been pre-approved!

On Monday, we got pre-approval from China to move forward with the adoption of little Shan Yu.  We think she's pretty adorable and we're glad to finally share her picture with you!