Our dossier is on its way to CHINA!!!!

We are so excited over here, because our dossier, which is all our important paper work that China has asked us to provide (birth and marriage certificates, health forms, employment info, etc) is on its way to China! Now, the count down to our dossier log in date begins and then we count down the days until we get our LOA or Letter of Acceptance! Yay!!!

I-800A Approved!

We just got our I-800A approval notice via email!! Now we just have to get a photocopy of it and then have it notarized, certified by the WI Sec. of State and authenticated by the China Consulate in Chicago.

I love this song and video.... enjoy, oh and grab a tissue! Oh, and I suggest, scrolling down toward the bottom of the blog to the music player. A song will start automatically but if you click on the arrow (triangle on it's side...) button, you can pause the song to listen and watch the video.

Another ICC video with a glimpse of Ava in it

I cannot believe how blessed we have been to receive so many glimpses of our little Ava since starting this journey!  This is another video that has been broadcast by International China Concern, it was created and performed by a group named "The Steels" to bring attention to the orphans in Heng Yang and Changsa China.  If you've watched some of the other videos I've posted by ICC, you may recognize this song from before.

Miss Ava appears for a few seconds starting at 2:45!  She looks sad......... :-( which breaks our hearts!

Our USCIS Application is still in the works.  The application has been there since Oct. 8th.  Our fingerprint appointments were set for Nov. 16th, but going on the advice of two wonderful people "in the know", we attempted a walk-in appointment on Oct 26th (Which just so happens to be Brian's birthday!).  To our pleasant surprise, it worked and although one of the officers there gave us a bit of an attitude, we were in, fingerprinted and on our way home within 45 minutes!  Unfortunately, a week or so later, I made my 1st call to USCIS to find out my finger prints failed.  I went back again as a walk in and unfortunately, those prints failed too.  I called USCIS again, this time, I was able to speak to our caseworker. She told me that when the fingerprint attempts fail twice, they now have a new procedure.  All I needed to do was obtain police background reports for the past 5 years.  That was pretty easy.  We overnighted the reports to her last week and so we know our officer began processing our application last week too.  I just wish this part of the process would go a BIT quicker!

All I really want for Christmas by Steven Curtis Chapman

Even Brian is picking out clothes for her!

We both agreed on this cute coat!  We bought pink snow pants to go with it!

Things that keep us busy while we wait for Ava...

We've started planning out Ava's bedroom. 

Here's the quilt we picked out for her.   The quilt is even more pretty in person!  You can't see this in the picture, but in the peach and flowered blocks, there are bright pink flamingos too!

Overdue updates and lots of news

Hi again!   We have been so busy here!  It's been hard to find the energy and time to sit down and write.   In the last few days, weeks and months, lots of news and things have been going on.  First of all, we FINALLY received new pictures of our little Ava and an update with answers to questions we've asked from the orphanage the other day. She is described as a "quite and genteel little girl".  We are worried because we have been told she has Hydrocephalus {commonly known as water on the brain} that has not been treated yet, because they feel it is stable since her head growth has remained stable.  Well, all the update said about that was again, that she is stable.  I guess we will just have to keep praying about that and just have her hydrocephalus checked once we get her home.  For those of you who don't know, I have hydrocephalus and so we are very aware of complications that can arise from this. 

Adoption Process Progress:  Ok, since my last post, our homestudy was finalized and approved.  Our next step is for US Immigration to approve Brian and I to adopt a child.  Our application is in their office, but has not been assigned an officer.  Once that happens, things will hopefully move along quickly.  Once we are approved to adopt we will be able to send our dossier to China.  Once our dossier is approved, then we can file an application with US Immigration again, to approve Ava to be brought into the US.  So, we are getting closer but still, it feels like we have a long way to go.

Other news:  while waiting, we have been busy with other projects in preparation for Ava's arrival and our trip to China.  To make room for Ava, we are adding a bedroom.  Collin will move into that room and Miss Ava will get Collin's old room.  Collin's new room is almost finished...the walls are up, dry-walled, primed and ready for paint.  The doors and woodwork will be delivered by this weekend.  We want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to our wonderful friend who is helping with those, you're AWESOME!  Once we get the carpet in, Collin can move in.  Then it's on to Ava's room.  We are still trying to figure out what colors to paint the walls in her room, but we have found a really cute quilt that sets the decorating theme, it's the Zoe quilt (for little girls) from JCPenny.  It's pink, green, white and peach with FROGS, BUTTERFLIES and Flamingos on it.  Stay tuned for further bedroom details.

In preparation for our trip, our attention has turned to Brian's back.  For those who may not know, he's had issues with his back for several years now.  Finally, we seem to be on the right track, thanks to Dr. Pauli, a wonderful Genetic Specialist out of Madison, WI who is the go-to-doctor for all things related to Achondroplasia Dwarfism.  After thoroughly examining Brian, he reassured us that Brian's back isn't as bad as we thought, but did help us to understand, that there are issues that need to be addressed.  He gave us the name of an Orthopedic Surgeon in the Twin Cities that has had lots of experience with dwarfs.  Next on our agenda is to get a consult set up with that doc.  Again, stay tuned...

Other news:  This year just seems to be flying by.  We are already into the 2nd quarter of the semester at Hartford Union High School for Collin and Shannon.  Collin is a JUNIOR this year...Oh myGosh.... as I TYPED that, I kinda freaked out!  I can't believe my Collin is a Junior this year........AND my Shannon is a FRESHMAN!!!  WOW!  Time, certainly has flown!  Both kids are doing great this year and both are working very hard to get good grades!  Brian and I are soooooooooo proud of both of them!  For those of you who don't know, Col and Shan are really close and I am so thankful for that!  Collin has been so kind hearted to Shan this year.  He's been driving her to school and has introduced her to many of his friends.  This is HUGE to me and means SOOO MUCH TO Me too!  And what I think is so great about this is that Collin has done this without even being told to do so, he just did this because he cares about his sister... WOW!

Soon, Collin begins his HS Swim season.  Stay tuned for those updates as well.  Unfortunately, we are a bit uncertain how things will go this year.  Again, for those who don't know about Achondroplasia Dwarfism, another issue we sometimes have to deal with is bowed legs.  Well, we also found out from the wonderful Dr. Pauli, that its time to have both of Collin's legs straightened.   We've always known he'd need to have the straightening surgery, but were just waiting for the time.  Well, it's time.   I knew Col's legs were bothering him when he asked me to make an appointment to talk to a doc about the surgery.  Col's been very apprehensive about the surgery, but he now has daily leg pain.  He's decided he wants to wait until after swim season, so we will see how things go.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Again, for those who don't know, Collin began swimming competitively during his freshman year.  Last year, Collin AMAZED us all...he made amazing strides in his abilities.  In his freshman year, he could barely finish warm ups.  Midway through his Sophmore swim season, he was closing in on breaking several US Paralympic Swim records and by the way, he know has done that!  More about that in future posts.


SHANNON... our animal, lover, fanatic and expert had the wonderful opportunity to shadow a veterinarian at our local animal hospital a few weeks back.  Originally, they had it planned for her to shadow from 8 am to Noon.  Things went so well, that they asked her to stay till 6:30 that night.  She had an AMAZING time!  While there, she got to observe a spay, a de-claw, a dental procedure and she got to sit in on several appointments.  Before this experience, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do after high school, but she knew she wanted to do something with animals.  Now, she's seriously thinking of going into veterinary medicine, our marine biology.    Next on Shannon's agenda, to hopefully start volunteering at a local horse stable!

Gotta go for now... Will be back again soon!

A little love from China will be going private soon....

Hi there!  Long time no post...sorry about that, I've been a bit distracted, I'll share about that soon.   I've got several things to share, 1st being, In a day or so, I will be making this blog private. I think the way that works, is...you will be emailed a link and a password to access the blog as a registered user.  Those who are regular viewers, I believe will be able to continue reading with out a password and if you choose not to register, you can continue reading as an anonymous reader. I'm not sure exactly how all this works, but please bear with me while I figure this out.  The reason I'm choosing to go private is because China's CCAA (the organization that handles adoption of their orphans) asks that pictures of their orphans are not posted publicly.  I hope you all understand... I'll keep you posted on this...

New pictures!

We received a few new pictures of Ava yesterday and today.  Here's the most recent one.... I will post the others later along with some updates!

Here's a video from this year's Walk the Wall

Here is a video created and posted by International China Concern on this year's Walk the Wall.  Ava appears in it at 2:49 seconds!  This video made our day!  She's smiling and walking toward the camera.  It's one of the best glimpses we've seen of her yet!

Our homestudy was approved by WACAP and now we are officially in "the China Program".  That basically means more paperwork, for immigration and WACAP and more waiting.  But still, it's a step closer to Miss Ava!  Our I-800a (immigration) application will be mailed out the 1st of next week.  Please say a prayer for us that this process goes quickly, we've been told it could take almost 2 months for approval.  Then, once our I-800a is approved, we send our dossier over to China.  That approval process, I've been told, should only take a few weeks. 

We woke up this morning to an email with this new picture.  It was taken just a day or so ago at "The Walk the Wall" event held in Heng Yang China, where Ava is living, www.walkthewall.org, explains a little more about the event. The event raises money for China's abandonded children.  ICC, International China Concern, is a Christian organization that brings love, hope and opportunity to China's disabled and abandoned children and they work directly with the children at her SWI, here's their web sight, www.english.chinaconcern.org. It's awesome to see her newest picture.  Still we can't wait to get her so we can love her like she deserves and hopefully put a beautiful smile on that cute face!

We are still waiting on our homestudy approval and our paperwork to be sent back after being authenticated by the China Consulate.  Both should happen any day now!

Here is a video my friend Linda found for us on Youtube about ICC and the work they do with children at the SWIs there.  Ava appears between 30 - 35 seconds into the video, she's sitting between 2 friends while eating something out of a bowl. Her friend Junie appears around 1:10 into the video. The little boy featured in the video is available for adoption too.  I believe the video was posted about a year ago.  I was going to post 1 more video I found on Youtube that promos "Walk on the Wall", but I'm having trouble downloading it.  If you just go to Youtube and search for "ICC International China Concern", you'll find several videos about this great event.
 

Lessons learned from our adoption process, chapter 1

So, I was on the phone with Amy, Awesome mom to Delaney, Riley, Quinn and Junie the other day.  Amy is the ANGEL who posted about Ava (bye the way, Yun's American name will be Ava Lee) also living at the same SWI (in China, orphanages are called Social Welfare Institutes) as her daughter Junie on LPA's (Little People of America) Adoption list serve.  Amy just brought Junie home in August.  That day, I was a bit frantic because the day before I had sent our dossier documents to the China Consulate in Chicago, BUT had forgotten 2 important bits of information, copies of our passports for identification purposes.  I had realized that the night before and so Brian and I had been worrying about what the consulate would do, figuring they would send it back, costing us more time, and to us, that translates into more nights that little Miss Ava would be falling asleep all alone, not knowing she now has a family who loves her.  I had called Amy to see what her experience was with the Consulate.   As we were talking, I got a call waiting notice.  I ignored it, figuring who ever it was, if they wanted to talk with me, they'd leave a message and I'd just call them back.  So, I continued chatting with Amy about our situation (still worrying inside).  Amy suggested overnighting the copies with a note explaining our situation plus, I had already emailed the Consulate too.   We also talked about Amy's family and how Junie was doing... She's doing WoNdErFuLLy bye the way... I even had a chance to talk directly with Miss Junie, however, she wasn't in the chatting mood.  Even though she wouldn't talk to me, that made my day!  I felt as if I was talking to a celebrity, well, I WAS!!!!  After that, Amy and I finished up our chat and went on with our busy days, she had to run to gymnastics and I had to start dinner.  Have I mentioned that I tend to forget things sometimes.  Well, it does happen.  So, yesterday, after returning home from a fabulous Saturday morning breakfast at the Mineshaft with BRIAN, I came home and checked the house phone for messages and we had one waiting.  I couldn't believe it....it was someone from the CHINA CONSULATE!!!!  They were the call waiting I ignored while on the phone with Amy talking about what I should do about about forgetting my passport copies!  So, this very polite sounding man with a chinese accent had left a nice message about what we should do, GO FIGURE!!!  He said to simply fax the copies to their office. So, I hung up the phone and RAN outside to tell Brian, he was outside with "the boys", (the dogs) Jack and Soyer.  He got himself ready to go and headed off to FAX the copies.  Thank you BABE!!! SOOOOOOOOOOO lesson learned.... while worrying about anything, if you're on the phone talking about what you are worried about and you get a call waiting beep......ANSWER IT!!!!!!!!!!!

Small steps that will lead to some BIG steps

Friday, Beth from Special Children (the adoption agency doing our homestudy) here in Wisconsin, emailed us a rough draft of our homestudy as well as WACAP (the adoption agency working with China).  This evening, I got an email from Jo Ann at WACAP .  She received the draft of our home study and said their 'China Program' (the team at  WACAP that works directly with China) will review it and so will the agency director.  That should only take a few days!  Once our homestudy is approved and notarized, we can send off our dossier to China and our application to US Immigration.   Progress! Yay!!

September Update

It's been a busy few weeks for us here.  We got this great picture of Yun and her friends a few weeks back.  We were told, while Yun and her friends were at a going away party for another friend, she and her 2 friends got up and started dancing...to CUTE! While I've been gathering our documents for our dossier, the kids headed back to school.  Shannon has started her Freshman year of high school and Collin is a Junior this year.  On one hand, I can't believe they are in high school already, but at the same time, I'm getting used to it.  We are all anxious to keep things moving with the adoption so we can bring Yun home!  Our home study is just about complete.  We've been sent a rough draft to look over, we finished our adoption education hours and we have all but one of our documents ready for the China Consulate. Yay!  So, we should be able to have our dossier sent off in a few more weeks to China!  Besides paperwork, Brian's brother Bob has continued working on Collin's new bedroom.  He's got almost all the dry wall up and will be moving on to taping and painting soon.  Collin can't wait to move-in, the room is at least twice as big as his current room....

Gehrung/O'Connell family news...

Guess what? No, we didn't get a new puppy or rat! And noo, I'm not pregnant!

We are adopting a beautiful little girl from China! Her name is Yang Heng Yun, or "Yun", she is 5 years old. She is described as being sweet, kind and quiet, strong willed and very loyal to her friends that she is closest too. She has Achondroplasia dwarfism like all 4 of us and she has Hydrocephalus (also commonly known as "water on the brain") like I do.

I'm sure you may be asking, "How did this come about?" Well, Brian and I had been talking about adopting for a few months. We knew we wanted to adopt a little person, so I joined LPA's (Little People of America) adoption email group. One day, another mom posted about a little dwarf girl living at the same orphanage that her little dwarf girl was at. That mom was advocating for the 2nd little girl, hoping she could find a home in the US and that maybe both girls would be able to keep in touch. Well, as it turns out, we only live about 2 hours away from each other!! I emailed her for more information and then a picture. Once we saw her picture, we knew there was no turning back. And so the process began...

We really had no idea where to start. All we knew is that we wanted this little girl to be ours. With the guidance of a few friends who had experience with adoption, I contacted the adoption agency handling Yun's file, WACAP out of the state of Washington. Within days, we received an adoption application in the mail. As we began filling it out, we came across China's requirements for adoptive parents. We met the age requirements and income guidelines, but there was one requirement we didn't meet. When we realized that, our hearts sank. China requires that for people who have been married for a 2nd time (that's me...) that you must be married for 5 years. Brian and I have been married for just under two. I contacted our social worker and she suggested we submit a pre-application to China anyway. So, we did that and then held our breath. Then on June 29th, we got the news that China had pre-approved us to adopt Yun!!!

And so now you maybe wondering where we are in this process... Well, we needed to have a Homestudy completed since this is an international adoption. With help from another friend, I contacted an agency here near us and began working with a wonderful social worker. We set the dates for our 2 homestudy appointments and have completed them both already. Next, we needed to obtain a bunch of paperwork for the homestudy. Mostly done (we are just missing 1 or 2 pieces) and delivered just yesterday. What's next? Our social worker here needs to finish writing up the study and then it's sent to WACAP for approval. Once the homestudy is approved by WACAP, we move on to the U.S. Immigration paperwork. Plus we have been working on collecting even more paperwork for our dossier. We are almost finished with that as well.

So, that's our news!! We are all so excited here! To prepare for our newest addition, we have decided to add another bedroom and a bathroom to the house. Brian's wonderful brother Bob has that project all under control and his daughter Nicky has been a huge help to him and us as well as we clear out the clutter and make room.