DAY 47

We're on Day 47 waiting on LSC. This waiting thing is not for me....it's my biggest flaw, patience! I keep praying for more patience, but it's so hard when you have a face and details on the child that will become yours. You just want to go and get them right that instant.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. —Romans 12:12

If we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.
--Romans 8:25 (New Living Translation)

If anyone is interested in adoption, I would encourage you to look into special needs. Here's a neat little video that has been created to introduce you to special needs adoptions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx-6t4vwDDA

Ann emailed me a picture of Ashlyn's care package. She says that Ashlyn should have it within 3 days. There's a blanket that the entire family has slept with to get our scent on it. There's a bag for Ashlyn that contains 4 disposable cameras, a dress, an outift, pjs, a paper scrapbook with all of our pictures with translations on them, and a Mickey Mouse doll. We also bought the foster family some shirts from Florida, some lotions, soaps, shampoos & conditioners, and some cologne. We wrote a letter to Ashlyn and a woman at my work translated it to mandarin. I wonder if this will be the first news of her being adopted and what she will think. I hope her and her foster family like everything.

Care Package

It looked like our care package was attempted delivery on the 18th. So I emailed Ann at Red Thread and she went to the post office today and it was still there, so she now has the package. This means that Ashlyn and her foster family will get the care package within the next few days! This kind of made my day since I've been a little down about not receiving LSC yet. I hope Ashlyn and the foster family like what we got them!

Day 42

So we're on day 42 right now...with no word for LSC (previously called LOA). I keep seeing all these people on their blogs that got there LSCs and are now getting there TAs (Travel Approvals) and are looking at August to September for travel. I wish I could be that close to getting Ashlyn! Jason keeps saying that he thinks we'll get it by Kaylyn's birthday next Friday...I can only hope. I am very happy for these other families getting one step closer to there little ones, but I find myself longing more to getting ours. I know it will come and we'll keep praying for it.

Received our updated I-797C Letter from the US Citizenship & Immigrations Services (so it only took 2 weeks). Hopefully that LSC will come quickly also :-)

We just got updates on Ashlyn along with some new pictures of her. We finally got a picture of her smiling. We are going to print this one out and post it on the fridge and I'm going to get it framed and put it up at work too! I wish we could go over and get her now.

We're on Day 35 waiting on LSC. For those who don't know what an LSC is, it stands for Letter Seeking Confirmation. It's basically the official referral of Ashlyn (Huang Xiang Ling) to us. After we get the LSC, we then wait for a TA (Travel Approval), which I've hear could take up to two months. We're also still waiting for our updated Approval Letter (I-797C) to change the age range. We are only on day 9 waiting for this updated approval letter and I believe the average is about 3 weeks for this.

Care package

Looks like the care package we sent Ashlyn finally left Miami to go outside the US today!

And so it begins...

Tonight we start our blog...a little late, but better late than never. We have been looking at a lot of other people's blogs who are in the same process as we are. We think that they've been helpful, so we thought that maybe ours might be helpful to someone else.

We have been praying for a swift LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation). We are on day # 30 and waiting. Haven't been getting much hope since we keep seeing everyone else waiting 80+ days even though our agency has told us 30-75 days. We'll just have to keep praying and remember that God's timing is the perfect timing.

Can't wait to go to China to get our Ashlyn!

Also, please pray for all the people in China right now. They are having major flooding in some areas and in others they are having bad riots; none which effect Ashlyn right now, thank God!