Kissing the Moon

This is a little poem I wrote a few weeks ago...just thought I would post it.


Kissing the Moon
Ever so quietly she tip-toes to the gate, she’s dressed you in the finest outfit. She places you where she knows that you will be found soon. The tears flow freely down her red cheeks. She kisses you softly on the forehead and wishes the best for the baby she can not keep.

She waits, the sun is coming up. There is a man on his way to work. He sees the tiny bundle at the gate. He motions to the workers inside to come and open up. They take you inside. She hurries away, she knows that you are now going to be taken care of.

Somewhere she knows what your real birth date is.
Somewhere she knows what your real name is.
Somewhere she knows how much she loved you and wanted the best for you.
Somewhere she weeps knowing she missed your first tooth and your fist steps.
Somewhere she looks at the moon hoping that you will find your way to a family that will love you as much as she does.
Many miles away that family has made room in their hearts for the little girl that has touched them in so many ways.

Many miles away, that family is making room in their home.
They talk about clothes, and new names for the little one they have only seen pictures of. Soon they will travel across a big ocean. They know this is daughter that was meant for them.

If there were some way to let her know how much that family will love and cherish her beautiful baby girl. They will never harm her, they will support her and take care of her. She will be loved as though she is one of their own. When we look at the moon, we hope and pray that she is seeing that same moon and will know in her heart that her baby is safe.

We love you sweet one. We love the one that did the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. She shall live forever in our hearts as the one that brought us together.

Getting closer...

After some filing and organizing, we have all the paperwork we need for USCIS except for the completed homestudy. (YAY) I faxed Michelle Wayne's employer reference letter and as I'm typing she replied. Be right back! She said everything looks great and to keep her up on where we are at in that process. Another YAY! Ok...I've got to call Wayne. See ya for now.

OOOOOHHH YYYYEEEEAAAHHHHH!!! AAI took Julia's picture off their site. I was wondering when they would take her down and guess what, they did today!!! We put a hold on her on April 19th, right after the first meeting we went to. I knew she was ours from that point. How exciting!! Yet another step...!!!

On the warm summer breeze that blows, sweet kisses make their way to China...

How much paperwork can one 2 year old take??

Ok...so I'm back on the mad woman pace. Trying to get all our documents ready for the dossier is exhausting. We have almost everything we need for the USCIS except the completed homestudy which we are hoping to get just after July 4th. Ideally, I'd like to have our dossier to China by the end of July, but that might be a bit too hopeful. Michelle and Eric are going to be our guardians and wrote up a really nice care and nurture plan. They are really awesome. I wish they could adopt with us. They are going to make some child really happy.

I've been trying not to buy too much stuff for Julia, but it really is hard!!! I'm sure she hasn't had too many new things of her own and so I feel like I want her to feel special with a few new things. Anna wasn't too hard on her clothes, so there are alot of things that Anna wore that Julia will be able to wear. I still have a hard time calling her Julia. She seems more like a Yin to me. I can't wait to hear what her foster mom calls her. I'm thinking that I'd like to get the foster mom a really cool locket or necklace with 2 intertwined hearts. JC Penney's has a few at their website that I think are pretty cool. I'm also thinking that I'd like to get her a Ludington sweatshirt. I dunno, I think it would be cool to have something like that. But...I'd also like to go COO (carry on only). I might be a little too optamistic on that. :-)

OK..need to work on laundry...I'll be back later. Oh and Aunt Cheryl, thanks for all the stuff you did for the kids. They both got up Tuesday and asked, "What are we doing with Aunt Cheryl today?" I told them you had to head home, they said, "That's ok, we are going to Florida in a new months!!!" Kids are great! Love you both!! Bye!

**PA!!**PA!!**PA!!**

At 9:34, Thursday June 16th...Michelle called to tell us that we got our Pre-Approval. WOOHOOO!! :-) SO...our time line is now LOI (letter of intent) sent on 5-26-05, PA 6-16-05. The average wait on the WCC board has been 49 days from LOI to PA. We waited 22 days!!! Amazing. The little boy from Yin's orphanage that we have pictures of...his parents got their PA as well. I got to meet his adoptive mom at a meeting that I went to last Thursday night. She seems very nice and I think that we are going to like traveling with them. They have 3 older kids, 18-16-13. They are thinking they'd like to take all of them with to China. EY EY EY. Maybe teenagers would be better than my little monkeys that are 7 and 5. Ok...I'm off for a while. Aunt Cheryl is still home and I need to call over there. :-) ta ta

~~WE GOT THE PICS AND VIDEO~~

I'm not going to write alot because I think the pictures will speak for themselves. The pictures were sent on Friday afternoon. Oh Lord, thank heavans Wayne and I were together, as we had decided to look at the pictures together first. Neither of us wanted to be alone we when got to see her for the first time. We truly believe she is the most beautiful girl in China!! We are so thankful to Michelle at AAI for getting us the pictures and video. OH! About the video, Julia is adorable. She seems like a really happy kid, always smiling and laughing at the people around her. She was banging on a symbol and having a good time making noise. Sounds alot like Anna and Cameron!! Anna was playing her piano and this little pink flute thing at the same time!! I think Julia and Anna could have a Wagner Sister's Band!! HAhahaha!!

We also went to Grand Rapids on Saturday to have our fingerprints taken. Nothing that exciting to talk about, the kids went to Aunt Pam's while Wayne and I went to the INS building. I swear, I'm looking out for other families that are adopting or just Chinese people in general. There's a little store down the road from Aunt Pam's that I want to go to. It's called Ming's Chinese variety store. :-) I might find something interesting there.

Ok, so it's picture time!!! Here she is!! Julia YinGui Wagner!!!

This is our JULIA YINGUI!! 

Julia and a little guy that is getting adopted by a GR family and his foster mom 

Julia and her foster mom 

Next stop: June 27th

We had our 2nd visit with MaryBeth today. All went well, no surprises or anything. Not much new to report. Our final home visit is on June 27th. I was hoping to get it done sooner, but we need time to clean and get the required reading done. Keep your fingers crossed about maybe getting pictures of Yin sooner than 9 days. I'm praying that Michelle will find a way to get the pictures loaded up. G'Night!!

Getting news from the Eastern Front!!!!!

We got an email from Michelle last night (or this morning) and I'm going to copy and paste it so you can read the whole thing. :-)

Hi Wayne and Melissa,

I just returned from the orphanage where I saw Lu Yin Gui. Oh is she cute!! She has quite a personality too! I don't think that I can figureout how to send pictures but I took several, and got some video. I mether foster mother too. Lu Yin Gui is small but looks well cared for. Shewas so happy to get the gifts that you sent her and then she tried to takethe other baby's gifts too! Her foster mother looked at your pictureswith her and pointed to you and called you mama and papa. She alsopointed and said the words. She also pointed out 'big sister' and 'bigbrother'. She was such a clown! she played with all of the toys in theroom and found a symbol that she started banging on. The director saidthat her hearing is normal but that she needs corrective surgery to herouter ear. She certainly seemed to hear just fine. The director saidthat he will have pictures taken for you with the camera and that theywill have them ready for you when you come for her. He asked that I passalong his sincere thanks to you for wishing to adopt her. I also got somepictures of the city. Lu Yin Gui lives with her foster mother but comesto the orphanage every Monday to spend time with other children and tohave a medical exam. Well, I will be in touch as soon as I'm back; Ican't wait to share the pictures and video with you; she is reallyprecious!

Michelle

WOWZA!! How exciting is that?? We are really beside ourselves!! In just a few days we will see new pictures of our little girl!! We can't thank Michelle enough and well, there is thanking GOD! Ok, I need to get some stuff done around here. Take care and I will update more after the visit with MaryBeth afternoon. Later!!

After a long weekend of marshmallows, dirty feet and campfires

So....we went camping this past weekend. All went well, especially the weather. The weather was really good. No rain, no clouds, no bugs!! Anna had the dirtiest feet of any child. We darn near had to powerwash her feet after she ran around all day wearing nothing but flip flops. Hey, if she's happy, I can be happy. Cameron on the other hand, I never saw. He played with Max, Mackenzie and Adam the whole time. We brought the soccer net and so the boys played all the time. (Good idea, Wayne!!) Camping does get easier for us as parents as the kids get older. So what are we thinking by adding a soon to be 2 year old?? I suppose we could call it temporary insanity.

So, there are no new updates on the adoption process. We choose my parents as the guardians for the dossier and homestudy. We do have our 2nd homestudy visit in Jenison with with MaryBeth tomorrow at 3:00. Still no word from Michelle about whether she's been able to get to see Yin (aka Julia). We may not hear from her until she returns, but we are hoping for an email to let us know. We are also in a holding pattern for the pre-approval. That is suppose to take 6-8 weeks. So we are waiting for 6-8 weeks for our passports too. Wait, wait, wait...I think adoption should be renamed the Waiting Game. :-)

Now about the aka Julia mention above. I think we settled on Julia YinGui. I saw a picture of a little girl that died before she got a chance to find her forever family. She had been born with a severe case of spina bifida. Her lower spinal cord and tailbone were exposed. The picture they showed was horrible and my heart truly aches for that little girl. So, having tossed around the name Julia already, I think it's a done deal now. I like it, Wayne likes it and I asked both the kids what they liked. I asked if they liked Allyson or Julia better. Cam's vote was for Julia. Same with Anna. Besides Julia fits with the whole girl names that end in A in our family. Check out this pattern: Melissa, Theresa, Samantha, Carla, Sarah, Anna and now Julia.

Well, it's now 10:59 and I'm tired. I'm glad you liked your sweatshirt Auntie Cheryl. Thanks for being the most supportive person in this journey. We are happy to have you along for the ride. Many hugs and kisses!! G'Night!

What a day for adoption stuff

First, to start the day. We had a 9:00am meeting with MaryBeth for a first homestudy visit. I think that all went well. We were given more homework and talked briefly about our views on adoption, our families feelings, and our marriage and family life. Everything must have gone alright because MaryBeth gave Michelle the ok to go ahead with our pre-approval package to China. :-) We should know in about 6-8 weeks if we are pre-approved. From what it seems from both MaryBeth and Michelle, Yin is essentially ours if the PA goes through. No one has given us any real reason to doubt that. We took all our little gifts for Yin to Michelle today too. We sent a teddy bear, a blanket that I made, a disposable camera, a ladybug book and a photo album of our family. We can't wait to see pictures of Yin. I'm sure she's grown into a very beautiful little girl. We also found out that family from G.R. is pursuing a little boy from the AAI special waiting kids program, that little boy is at the same orphanage as Yin. I'm hoping that we get to travel with that family. I think a small group would be nice.

We also had a nice batch of mail. One piece from USCIS!! We got our fingerprint appointments, June 11th at 10:30am in Kentwood. It's a Saturday, so that works well for Wayne. We also got our birth certs. and marriage certificate from the state with the Great Seal on them. Woohoo!!
Also in that batch of mail was a letter from Michelle stating that she was going to be in China for 2 weeks. This is already knew. ;-)

This is probably the last post for the weekend. We are headed to Benzie for the 11th annual Wagner Family Campout at Timberline. Samantha is going again. YAY! She's a huge help. Theresa and Tyler are coming up on Saturday. It should be a fun time. Ok..I'm off. Aunt Airry if you get your present call us on our cell phone. We can't wait for you to see it!! :-) G'Night!!

Updates!

Ok...so I've taken some time off to regroup before posting a new message. First, Michelle emailed us on Friday to let us know that she WILL be travelling to where Yin is at. Can I get a big WOOOHHHOOOO???!!! We are beyond excited about that. Michelle offered to take some items over for us. I rounded up some pictures of our family, our home and our extended family to add to our photo album. I'm hoping to get a blanket over there to her, but I understand if Michelle doesn't have the suitcase space to take it. It will just have to wait till we get to travel in November. Slowly but surely this is all coming together. We will meet with MaryBeth on Wednesday for the homevist. Michelle mentioned that she already has our letter of intent, our nurture and care plan, and the agency recommendation headed to the translator to send to CCAA for pre-approval. It seems we are headed on a highway at 80 mph to get Yin home to Michigan...Oh, that's a GOOD thing by the way. :-) Friday also consisted of applying for our passports, getting background checks and talking to Beth (Stenzel) about getting a reference for the homestudy. She agreed (YAY! I did have to agree to attend a pampered chef party. Haha. A girl can never have enough pizza stones or good kitchen tools!!) We needed to have a teacher or admin person write a letter on our behalf about our qualifications for parenting another child, a child with special needs, and how our own children are going to react to the addition of another child. Without a doubt, I'm sure that it will all go smoothly.

We spoke with Michelle Schoon at the kids soccer games Saturday. Michelle and her husband adopted their daugher Ellie from China about 2 years ago. She's adorable! I'm sure people will think that of our Yin as well. Michelle was very positive and supportive, I look forward to having more conversations with her about their adoption process and how their family is now.

Wayne and I went to Muskegon today and bought 3 of our 4 required reading books. I couldn't find the "eyes wide open" workbook. I do think that MaryBeth said that we could get that at their office. I'm almost half way done with The Lost Daughters of China. It's been a great book, and I now see why they recommend that new adoptive parents read it. (Hey..Auntie Cheryl, when you come home I'll let you take it back with you...it will explain more of the situation in China than I ever could.) I'm excited to get reading...although..I'm not sure

MaryBeth called!!

Ok, so the day didn't go like I had thought. We didn't get to all the appointments that I wanted to., but...the big but....MaryBeth called today. We have our first 2 home visits scheduled. May 25th and June 1st. I need to get my arse in gear and get the recommended reading material and start reading. We need to read 4 books before we can schedule the last home visit. If we can go as fast as another family, we will be able to get it done in 4 weeks. Not that it will make our process go any faster, but I want to get all this outta the way so we can have a somewhat peaceful summer. I want to get all our paperwork for the dossier completed in record speed. I want MeiYin to get home before Christmas. Speaking of MeiYin...Wayne and I have jumped around on names again. We both really like MeiYin, but I haven't consulted Ming to see if she feels that it's an ok combination. I'm sort of leaning towards giving her an American name, just for her choice later on. I like Allyson. So her full name (if I get my way) would be Allyson MeiYin Gui Wagner. WOW! That is a mouthful...maybe I need to shorten it to Allyson MeiYin or Allyson YinGui. I don't know...I'm glad we have enough time to figure it out.

So, here's the game plan for tomorrow. Wayne and I hit the county clerks office for the application for passports. I'd like to hit sheriffs office too for the criminal checks. I doubt that will happen. Anna has her last day of preschool tomorrow as well. The graduation ceremony is at 7:00. I can't wait to see the PowerPoint they put together. Yes, Aunt Cheryl...I will either email that to you or send you a hard copy. :-) Ok...I'm tired. Night!! ;-)

Busy Day!

Today is the day we get our passports, criminal background checks and the medical exams. What a busy day!! Hard to believe we are really doing this. We talked with Marc and Sharon last night. They decided not to be Yin's guardians for the purpose of our dossier. So the search continues. We are now hoping that Eric and Michelle will do it. If they won't...well, the search continues. Maybe Jeff and Tracy or Greg and Kathy. I gues we need to find out more about the legality of the guardianship part of the dossier. I'll be back later!!

Oh my goodness!! Holy Cow!

Um...I'm not sure where to start. We had our conference with Michelle today. She dropped a bomb on us. She is travelling to Hubei next week and has the possibility of going to Yin's home town and seeing her!!!!!!!! Wayne and I were speechless. I can't believe it. She may get to see Yin!! We are frantically trying to get ideas together for a care package for her. I'd like to pack a blanket, a camera, pictures of our family and house and maybe a little toy. If I don't get to send her something, all I ask the Lord for are a few new pictures of her. I can't wait to see how big she is. I'm sure she's really grown from the old pictures. I'm saying a special prayer tonight in hopes for the new photos and the ability to get a package to her. :-)

Venting about the bitter woman

I was just reading another couples blog about their adoption process. I really think the woman that writes is nut. I think she harbors some serious issues with families that have biological children or already have adopted kids. She seems very bitter and has alot of resentment towards those other families. She apparently feels slighted in some way that she wasn't able to have children of her own. I know many women who aren't able to have their own kids and they are very well adjusted people! I just don't get where this womans attitude comes from. It's not like God sat down and made a list of people he was going to make infertile. It just happens, life works in mysterious ways and we need to take it as it comes. If it doesn't work out how we want, we make changes; we adapt. I guess I feel sorry for her. She's a very cynical person, for her adopted child's sake I hope she changes. Life is too damned short to hold grudges.

Ok, enough of my venting about someone else. We have our phone meeting with Michelle today. I hope this is when MaryBeth makes our homestudy visit. I will update more later. :-)

The starfish story

Yay!! Got the paperwork for the I-600! We also ordered our birth certificates and marriage certificate from VitalChek. Another YAY!! I'm trying to convince Samantha to come help we get the house ready for the homestudy. I'm not sure when MaryBeth will be coming to the house, but we need to get things in order. I'd like to have the visit before Memorial weekend, but I doubt that will happen. From what I can tell from AAI is a fairly busy agency. The more I visit online groups the more I see AAI families. :-) Crazy me is already thinking about doing this again for a baby boy. Cameron wants a baby brother. Wayne probably thinks I'm nuts. He probably thinks that I'm a nut already. Hahahaha!!! When you look at all the kids that are available, it breaks your heart. But the most important thing is that we are making the difference to a little girl that wouldn't have half the chance. Here is the story of the starfish.

There was a young man walking down a deserted beach just before dawn. In the distance he saw a frail old man. As he approached the old man, he saw him picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the sea. The young man gazed in wonder as the old man again and again threw the small starfish from the sand to the water. He asked, "Old man, why do you spend so much energy doing what seems to be a waste of time." The old man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. "But there must be thousands of beaches and millions of starfish!" exclaimed the young man. "How can you make any difference?"
The old man looked at the small starfish in his hand and as he threw it to the safety of the sea, he said, "It makes a difference to this one!". Author unknown

I think this about sums it up for us as a family. I wish the world felt this way....

Rain, Rain, go away...

Bleh, it's been raining all day today. What a bummer. Not that it really mattered, I worked at the hotel today. Another big BLEH. I did get some paperwork done while there. I wrote up the employer letter. YAY! I'm super tired, so I'm not feeling up to leaving a huge post tonight. Maybe tomorrow. :-)

Appointments, Appointments, and AARRRGGHHH!!

I just made our medical appointments. May 17th at 1:15 and 5:15. Ahh...the benefits of living in small town USA. There will be a lot of things that I think will be easier since we do live in a small town. The police reports, the doc visits, employer reference letters...there's just SO MUCH to do. None of it is really hard, just time consuming and enough to keep me busy for a while. I'm going to try to convince Wayne to go apply for our passports today. I'm still waiting for our I-600 stuff to get here. :-( Anyways, time for a shower...Be back later!!

I spent about 2 hours at Wayne's office trying to organize all of the dossier info. Wayne wrote his letter (well, I typed it...he talked and gave me info), I called the sheriff's dept. to see how we go about getting background checks. I'd like to get the passports done and get the copies of our birth certificates/marriage certificate while we are at the county clerks office. I just need to get Wayne motivated to get there. He doesn't feel the rush like I do. I just want to get LuYin here as soon as possible. Guess that's the mom in me... The one thing that has impressed Wayne is my organization skills of all this adoption stuff. We scheduled a phone appointment with Michelle on Monday for 1:00. This is to discuss the dossier/homestudy process. We now have an assigned caseworker. Her name is MaryBeth and she should be contacting us soon about setting up our first homestudy visit. YAY! :-) I talked with Marc and Sharon about being the legal guardians for the purpose of the dossier. I'm sure they will, they love kids like we do! Besides, LuYin is the cutest kid! (Yes, I am sounding more like her mom everyday!)