Still waiting

We're still waiting, no real hope of any thing for many months yet. At the last update, our dossier has finished translation, and is "pending review". There are at least 9 LID dates from our agency ahead of us, at least two months worth. But then we could be in the review process for several weeks, and then if there are no problems, we would go back on the shelf for several more months waiting to be matched with a child.

The only real action we might see would be if the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs would want a clarification or additional information concerning something in our Dossier. This would show up during the review process. On the US end, our pre-approval from Immigration is good for 18 months, and our fingerprint check is good for 15 months, so it is possible we might need to be fingerprinted again.

We're just trying to keep busy with our normal lives, and trying not to go slowly mad with the waiting. Kim has been busy exchanging quilt material with other waiting parents, has several secret pals, and other projects to keep her mind occupied. I've been up to my usual activities, getting my crop in, and working for the fertilizer company. We've had a relatively early spring this year, so we are somewhat ahead of normal, but we've had some rains recently which have delayed us some, and there is a lot of work to be done.

We lost a cow and calf a few days ago, without going into the gory details, she had problems in the birth process, and we were unable to save her. On the bright side, we had a set of twin calves last night, and both have survived so far. It was an assisted birth, they were coming back feet first and tangled up. I was surprised to get one live calf, let alone two.

Maybe a "paper pregnancy" is easier on the body, but it's tough on the psyche, not knowing the "due date" makes it really rough, can't make long term plans like you can with a physical pregnancy, as you pretty much know when to expect the arrival. Oh well, we are doing our best to keep our spirits up, and try to be optimistic. I expect we'll start on Miaya's room this summer, that will keep us busy, but will probably make us miss her more. It's surprising how much you can miss someone you've never met.

Optimistically, we could hope for a referral in November/December, but I suspect it will probably be more like January or February 2007, and traveling to China 6 to 8 weeks later.