Thursday, March 22, 2012

Travel Itinerary

Here we go!

4/2 - Off they go!
4/3 - Arrive in Beijing - Spend one night
4/4 - Fly to Nanchang!
4/5 - Gottcha Day!  Madeline will arrive at 11:00!
4/6-4/8 - Paperwork and sight seeing!
4/9 - Fly to Guangzhou
4/10 - Baby Medical Check
4/11 - Free Day
4/12 - CA appointment and oath ceremony
4/13 - Pick up Madeline's Passport and Visa
4/14 - Come Home!

Monday, March 19, 2012

IT'S A GO!! - UPDATE

I heard this afternoon from our social worker!  We got our first choice date for our appointment at the US Consulate!  On April 9th Walt will take a pledge on behalf of Madeline!  That's three weeks from today!!

UPDATE -  Due to a holiday in China we had to tweak our travel dates.  Here are the official dates.
April 2 - Depart from Newark
April 5 - Gottcha Day aka Xiang Fei officially becomes Madeline Kate Clark!
April 12 - US Consulate Appointment!
April 15 - Arrive Home!

More details to come!

Friday, March 16, 2012

旅遊批准 = TRAVEL APPROVAL

Today I am walking on cloud 9!  At approximately 12:55pm my cell phone rang!  As I jumped up to get it (and hurdle a few first graders) all I could think of was this better not be Walt calling me!  Well it wasn't!  It was my wonderful agency calling to let me know they received our travel approval!  Our first choice/tentative dates are March 30 - April 10th!  If this works out, Gottcha Day will be April 2nd! We'll know for sure by Tuesday!  Tonight we will celebrate with a Chinese food dinner then some fun at the park!  It just so happens that today is exactly seven months since we were preapproved to adopt Madeline!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Yeah! We Got An Update!

It's not often that something is emailed to you that makes so unbelievably happy.  I'm talking, no words to describe happiness!  Lucky for me that happened this afternoon!   We received updated pictures and answers to the questions submitted to our agency.  First, the questions:


Family’s questions

1. What is her current height and weigt?  
 height 78cm  weight 10.4kg  head circumference 44cm  feet 11cm  teeth 4 on the top, 5 on the bottom

2. Does she sleep in a crib or with her foster mom? 
 She sleeps in the crib on her own.

3. Does her mom rock her to sleep or is she given a bottle and placed in a crib? 
She likes to hold a little handkerchief or towel when she goes to sleep.
Just lay her down in the crib with the towel in hand, no need to rock her.

3. How does her foster mom calm her when she is upset?
Usually the foster mom would give her a toy or something to calm her down.
She would play with toy in hand and stop crying.

4. What do they call her? 
The foster family just call her Xiang Fei.

5. Does she drink from a cup or bottle?
They give her water by spoon.

6. Does she drink milk or formula? 
 She drinks formula. The brand is Lactogen from Nestle.

Now for the pics!  In China it is normal to dress babies in layer upon layer.  Hence.... check out her red cheeks!


As for when Walt is going to pick her up?  Any day now, our agency will hear from China on that.  I think they will be home just after Easter!  (Stay Tuned)

Monday, March 12, 2012

March 12 Has Come and Gone

I was wrong.  I was predicting that today was going to be the day when we would have gotten our TA phone call.  Nope.  Nada,  Zilch.  Back in January, my wonderful agency predicted March 19th. So I guess will see!  Stay tuned!