The waiting begins

Well, we sent our dossier by FedEx to China with the March Gift of Love batch on March 18. It was received in China on March 21. People keep asking us if we've heard anything yet. No, we haven't. And we won't hear anything until probably seven or eight months from the date our paperwork was logged in by the Chinese adoption officials.

Do the math: The next news we'll get is a letter with a passport sized photo of our daughter sometime in October or November - if all goes well.

In the meantime there will be no updates from China, no "we're almost there" letters. We will have nothing to report on that front until we get the referral.

Most people travel about six weeks after they get their referral.

Jon and I will keep you posted on our preparations here, on this site, though. So stop by if you're thinking of us and wondering what we're up to.

Everyone seems to ask the same questions when we see or speak with them. One of the big ones is how old will she be when we get her. So here's our answer: We won't know how old she is, or how much she weighs. Only that she will be a girl and she will be our daughter. We're fine with that - we're perfectly content to leave our lives in the hands of fate.

If you're one of the very kind people who have offered help or baby showers we thank you for your excitement and we love you for wanting to be involved but we have no idea what we will need at this point. Really. She could be 6 months old or she could be 2 years old and we won't know until we get her photo from China. Our plan is to have a ballistic shopping spree for necessities and register on Babies R Us once we get the referral and before we leave for China.

When we get back, we'll hole up alone in our house for a week or two to bond as a family before introducing the entire cast of characters in our daughter's new life. It's very important for us to do this, so that we don't confuse her and risk breaking her heart with more people coming and going from her life before she understands that Jon and I are her forever family. I'll write more about this later. It is one of the most important things the toddler adoptions books Jon and I are reading stress.

Thanks for checking in with us. We love you and can't wait to introduce you to our newest family member.

All best,

Cheryl