Olivia's Room

We were very blessed with our church adding on 850 sq feet to our home to accomodate for our growing family. We now have a 5 bedroom 2.5 bath home. It is wonderful!! For the first time ever, all 3 of my boys have their own room/space and Olivia will have her own room as well. We are very appreciative of all that was done and can't wait to put our little girl in her room!

My mommy made this for Olivia!!

Pictures of her bed and bedding.

Heather, Jessica, Hannah, Lana and I painted these walls. Anthony picked the colors and they are beautiful!! Lana came a little later and painted grass under the window and we put the flowers my MIL and FIL bought for us on the grass! I LOVE IT!! Her room is beautiful!!!

The wait!

This has been one of the hardest things to do...wait and wait and wait. You think 9 months seems like forever, try over two years!! If I were an elephant I would have had my baby by now....now that's long!!! But...we wait!

Alot of things have gone on through the wait. Alot of emotions have been felt during this time. It really has been, what the Rumor Queen people call, a rollercoaster ride. At times you are as excited as can be, but other times you are so far in the valley that you can't seem to even see the grass. This has been for me a test of patience and faith. God has shown me Himself through so many things, that I can't even begin to write them all down. All I know is that when money was needed, money came. When heartache came, He sent something positive. When I wanted to give up, and yes, that crossed my mind on a few occasions, He showed me this was something that HE put in our hearts to do and HE was going to get us through it. We have been blessed beyond measure with this whole adoption...this GOD given adoption.

My boys have helped me through this time. My husband has helped me. The boys have gotten so tired of waiting and that hurts worse than me waiting. I am just so blessed to have my boys, all 4 of them. Zackery graduated from the 8th grade and will be in the 9th next year...HIGH SCHOOL!! Cameron is going into the 7th grade and Chase into the 5th. I am so proud of them. Anthony only has one more year of school and he will have his Master of Divinity...sooo proud of him. I am very blessed with my boys and can't wait to see what God has in store for us with our little girl...who WILL be spoiled but the way!! I really think the men are going to be the biggest ones to spoil her, but all she has gone through in her life...I think it will be fine to spoil her. We will be so blessed to have her!!

Well, that's some about us !! In about 3 weeks, hopefully, we see Olivia's face. Pray that it comes fast and that we get our travel arrangements fast to go and get her. There have been a lot of disappointments during this time, but we have been told that once her picture is in our hands, all the wait and feelings of pain and disappointment will diminish. I guess it's like labor pains, you really do forget once you hold your precious one!! Stay with us through our journey and watch our beautiful family become even more beautiful and even more blessed!!!

Timeline

For those of you who are just starting the process and are interested in seeing time frames, this is for you. It had been a LONG process, but everyday puts us closer to our beautiful little girl!!

2005
March 19-attended seminar
March 23- sent application to AWAA
April 1- Application accepted
April 6- 1st session with homestudy
April 12- Mysty met with Carla (homestudy)
April 16- Mailed USCIS (I600A)-The first time
April 19- Anthony met with Carla

May 9- Received dossier papers
May 11- Mysty's physical
May 12- Anthony's physical

June 2- Completed Homestudy
June 7- Had fingerprints done

August 16- Received I171H- FIRST ONE!! Mysty applied for passport
August 19- Mailed dossier to Houston for Authentication
August 22- Papers arrived in Houston
August 26-Received passport (had it expedited)
August 29- Received dossier papers back from Houston

October 12- Mailed completed Dossier to AWAA
October 14- Arrived at AWAA
October 21- Dossier mailed to China
October 24- Dossier arrived in China
October 26- Was assigned to group 237!!

November 9- LOG IN DATE (LID)

Now....the wait starts!! We were told it would take 6-9 months to get our baby, well...
still waiting to get our baby!! The wait time increased and so all we could do was wait. We knew God had our perfect Olivia waiting for us, so what else could we do?

Hope this help future adoptees!! Unfortunately the wait time seems to be increasing more and more. Let's pray that it speeds up!!

The Beginning!!!

We are going to start from the beginning to give you a brief run-down of our whole adoption process to get our baby girl Olivia. With us not being able to have anymore children, we thought that we had our perfect family with our 3 boys, Zackery, Cameron and Chase, but in our hearts, we really felt like there was something missing. We had thought about adoption, but because of the cost, we dismissed it. Then in 2004, Alana came into our lives. I was watching kids in our home and Julie, Alana's mom, was told that I watched kids, so she called. Alana had been adopted from China and was with her forever loving family in Nov. 2003, so placing her with someone to be watched was a HUGE deal. God chose our family to be blessed with that task. From the moment Alana came into our home, she overtook our hearts. She is even to this day, a VERY special little girl to all 5 of us and all of our family members. She is intelligent, silly, full of energy and oh so beautiful. She has absolutely wonderful, caring and attentive parents who adore her with all their hearts!After watching her for a little over a year, Anthony and I started talking about adoption. Then, in March of 2005, Julie called and told us that there was an adoption seminar in Memphis and just wanted to let us know!!! Well, we talked and decided that it wouldn't hurt to just go and listen,...needless to say, God spoke in a real way to both of us during this seminar. As we left, we got in the van and Anthony looked at me and said, "Well?" I said, "I am all for it, it's you that need to make the final decision!" And at that point, he looked at me and said, "Let's do it!!" We both cried and thus starts the whole LOONNGG process of our adoption from China. Despite the financial and emotional burden that would take place, we felt God's leading that strong!