Our sweet boy

We all had a wonderful Channukah celebration, but how could we not with such a wonderful, sweet little boy.

He's talking up a storm and has now progressed to six word sentences. 

405 days

While we waited for Adam, we had a reminder on the 13th of every month of how many months (and then years) we had been waiting. Once we received our referral, our celebrations became more joyous (days until we travelled, days until we held him, etc). Once we got Adam, things got even better, celebrating his birthday, celebrating our first anniversary of having our beautiful son.

Today may rank as one of the best days - we have officially had him as our son longer than he was in the orphanage. 

One year

How is it possible that we have had our sweet little boy for a YEAR already? It doesn't seem possible. It feels like just yesterday we were sitting in a hot Civil Affairs office receiving our scared little boy. I can remember every detail about that day as if it were only yesterday.

Today Adam and I celebrated by going to Build-a-Bear and we made Monsieur Anniversaire Bear. Corny, but I wanted to make him something to signify that day. He was very excited to choose his bear and he made sure to kiss the heart before they sewed it into his bear.

First family vacation!

So, I've been very neglectful of the blog in the past year. I know I said I was finished with it, but I had to post a couple of pictures from our summer vacation to visit a very good friend of mine.  We had a FANTASTIC time with Michelle, Mike and MaeLie and I wish we could have stayed longer. The kids got along beautifully.

We spent a day at a local park and zoo, and then met up the following day for breakfast. I think MaeLie was completely enamoured with Adam, especially since she willingly gave him some French fries! The next day Adam was asking for "Mae". :)

Fun at the park

Home

Sorry I've neglected the blog for so long, but we've been really busy. We've been home for a week so far and it's been the best time of our lives. After a whirlwind trip to China for our sweet boy, and having the jet lag kick our butts and getting over being sick...etc, etc, etc. Anyway, I know most of you aren't interested in all of that, so here's a picture of our beautiful son. 

I probably won't be updating here very often anymore (so you can stop stalking everyday), but I wanted to thank the entire adoption community for all of their support over the six year wait.

How cute is he?

We are SO in love with this sweet face, our little chunky monkey.

Thanks everyone for your kind words and congratulations on the referral of our son. :)

The long, long, LONG wait is over!

This morning, at 8:15, I got THE CALL from my agency and found out that they finally had our referral translated and was back from BLAS. We have a wonderful, amazing, beautiful SON (born 26 July 2011.)

Here he is, our Little Maple, now known as Adam Sawyer Haijun - just waiting for us to hug him.

We will receive our referral package tomorrow via Fed Ex - what a great way to spend the Canada Day long weekend.

No news

Our agency is *hoping* to get the translation back tomorrow - if not, then it's going to be Tuesday since it's a long weekend here. Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be posting Little One's picture tomorrow at some point (after family and close friends have been notified.)

(Bonnie, thanks for your lovely comment on the previous post.) :)

Beautiful...

My dear friend, Elaine, wrote this song for Josh and I a few years ago about our wait. Have a listen, but keep the tissues nearby...

Look what arrived today...

No, not our referral - but these flowers (from some very special friends). The first bouquet arrived this morning, with two others later in the day. The picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. The words and sentiments attached to these wonderful flowers will be remembered. Always.

What a whirlwind!

We got an email yesterday afternoon from our agency that they received our referral! They have to go through the paperwork, translate it and we should expect our phone call by next Friday - six years of waiting is now reduced to a measly six more days of waiting. I can't wait to finally see Little Maple's face!

FINALLY!

We should be getting our referral in the next couple of weeks. Apparently it takes about a week for the referral package to get from Beijing to our agency and then they hold onto it for a few days (up to a week) and translate all the information. If all goes well, we should be travelling at the end of August - give or take. :)

It's so hard to put into words, exactly what we're feeling right now.

It only took 69 months (2108 days). Wow, just wow.

Fortune telling...?

I meant to post this last week. My mom went out for Chinese food on the 13th (hopefully our final LIDiversary) and inside her fortune cookie she saw this...

Referrals are imminent!

"We believe the CCCWA is preparing paperwork to work on matches at this time. We hope to receive more information regarding the next group of matches very soon. As soon as more information arrives, we will update this site."

Rumours

RQ thinks that the next batch may arrive in just over a week. Hard to imagine that the past (almost) six years of waiting, hoping and dreaming are now down to a few measly days. There’s something so overpowering about one simple four-letter word… NEXT!

21?

There's roughly another three weeks to wait until our referral. It seems so weird that it's just a matter of a few, short weeks until we get to find out who our child is.

...and now it's June

It feels so weird to say (again) that at some point THIS MONTH we're going to know who our child is. After 14 years of waiting, wishing, dreaming and hoping, we are finally going to be a family of three. To celebrate the beginning of our referral month, Josh took me out for a lovely dinner.

4 weeks?

I think that's how long we have left to wait until we see our Little One's face. It doesn't seem real yet, even though I know it is. Does that sound as weird as I think it does?

Less than a month?

I got an email today from our agency and they believe we're next. Assuming our referral IS in the next batch, I think we're just less than a month from seeing our child's face for the first time. Once the batch comes out, our agency holds on to the referral for a week while they torture translate the file. They won't confirm that they received the referral nor will they even let us know anything (ie., age, sex, location) - talk about frustrating! With all that said, I hope the next month goes by REALLY quickly.