Name

Several people have asked us whether or not we were going to keep BoBo's chinese name. When reading this Blog you may have wondered the same thing ;-)
BoBo will receive a new name when she becomes a part of our family, but she will keep a chinese middle name as a way of preserving her heritage. Since she is three years old, this transition will most likely be a gradual one, as she is used to her chinese nickname by now (which we love, by the way!).
Once we receive our pre-approval from China, we will share more information about her new name and more details we know about BoBo.
But for now, BoBo it is.
Deutsch:http://chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/03/name.html

Love without Boundaries

I have been wanting to write about this organization for a while now, especially since we are personally affected by it - in a very special way.
The direct Link to the LWB website is in the list to the left, but this is what they are all about:
Love Without Boundaries is a worldwide group of volunteers who have realized that people with a pure love for helping children can truly make a difference. We all donate our time and resources in an attempt to brighten the lives of orphaned children in China. .
LWB has medical programs for China's orphans (surgeries for Special needs children), nutrition programs for orphanages, and foster programs in several chinese cities.

Here is a Link to a LWB video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ipa-X9p31Ag

I always thought that I would love to be able to adopt a child who had received support from an organization like Love without Boundaries, but to be honest, I never even prayed for it. I just assumed (Strike 1) that this was next to impossible (Strike 2), so why bother....
The Lord however, in his neverending love for his children, planned a special surprise for us: Soon after BoBo's referral, I found a Yahoo group of parents who adopted from the same City as BoBo is from. It was there I found out that LWB has a Foster program in that same city. I already knew that BoBo was in Foster care, so I contacted Julie, who is coordinating that foster program, just to see if she knew BoBo.

I received a reply within just a couple of hours. Here is what Julie said:
I am beyond, waaay beyond excited that Bo is finally getting a Mom!! Yippeee. I love Bo Bo and yes she is sponsored! Did I say I was pleased!!! great news. I have tears in my eyes! She has the cutest grin!. I unfortunately cannot share any of her reports until after she is home with you but know I am very happy to do so then!

I was overwhelmed with gratefulness - not only to the people of LWB, but mostly to the Lord, who has truly given me the desire of my heart.

Deutsch:http://chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/lwb.html

More birthday pictures

Elia helped me bake BoBo's cake yesterday. We thought (I should rephrase that... "I thought" ;-)) ) we could run some errands while the cake was in the oven. Well, that plan backfired, as we came home to a horrible stench in the kitchen...

Lesson 1: Don't put cupcakes in the oven at the same time, thinking that they will take as long as the cake!

Lesson 2: Come home EARLIER than planned, not LATER than calculated! The cake WILL burn!

(not like I didn't know that, either :-))

But anyway, the cake was salvaged, and with the decorations it looked so pretty!

BoBo - Mama LOVES to make special birthday cakes for her kiddos, and next year, we will celebrate WITH you!

I will be sending some of these pictures to Julie, who will be visiting BoBo's hometown and foster family next month. Hopefully we will have PA by then, too!

Nico, Anya, Alex and Elia were excited to celebrate BoBo's birthday!

Mike wasn't home from work until after the party, he was so bummed to have missed it!

Deutsch:http://chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/geburstag-2teil.html

Happy Birthday, BoBo!

Dear BoBo,

Not a day goes by that I do not think about you. I thought of you especially today on your birthday. I hope that you had a wonderful birthday and I can't wait to watch you blow out your candles. That may seem like a strange tradition for you, but I think that you will like it. I know that your brothers and sister like it and they will definitely help on your next birthday. I wish you a wonderful day.

Love, Daddy

And guess what???? Today, on BoBo's birthday, we received our I 171-H !! Thank you, Lord. What a cool birthday present! Tomorrow, a copy of it will go to Cheyenne for the State Certification, and next week it will be off to Washington. I'm hoping that we will be DTC (=Dossier to China) by the middle of March for sure. Sweet girl, we're getting there!

Waiting is hard...

We are still waiting for our I-171H, the document from the US Immigration services, which will allow us to bring BoBo into the US. It's been 2 months since they received our homestudy, and over 2 weeks already since they received the update they needed. Our waiting for Travel approval will not start until our dossier is logged in in China, so the sooner we can get that done, the sooner we can go get that little Missy!
Pray, pray, pray - PLEASE!

Uebersetzung:www.chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/wir-wartenund-warten.html

The sweetest thing about my husband...

Last Friday, we went to a Valentines banquet at our church. We visited with a couple we had never met before, and we got to talking about kids (of course!). Mike was asked how old our kids were. He answered: 9, 7, 6, 4 and 3. When I glanced at him he just had this happy grin on his face and said to me: "Might as well get used to including BoBo, too". That was a gift more precious than a dozen roses!! I love you!

A great book we recommend

My very very dear friend Andrea sent me this book a couple of weeks ago. What a wonderful, touching story! It's amazing how God orchestrated the efforts to save this little boy!
Here is a description of the book:
www.focusonthefamily.com/focusmagazine/sohl/A000000697.cfm

One section really spoke to me: (Page 92)

"Every adoptive parent wonders if there will be a natural attraction to a new child. And what if there's not? Does that mean you love the child less or are incapable of really loving him or her? No. You must simply love in deed first, and then feelings of love will follow. Our society has this love thing all twisted around. We think the basis of love is our feelings, but it's not. The New Testament teaches that love is a decision to act. Love is always about what you do for others, not what you feel."

My prayer is that I will see our little girl through God's eyes, and that I will have HIS love to love her completely and forever. It comforts me to know that my feelings of inadequacy are nothing compared the great love that our heavenly Father already has for her.

The following verses from the old testament totally spoke to us once we decided to petition to adopt BoBo:

Deuteronomy 28, 2 - 8
All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock - the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flock. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

Another glimpse into the chinese culture

I love coming across pictures like these! We can't wait to travel to China and experience this fascinating country. I just ordered a book today to learn some chinese phrases. Since BoBo is already three, we feel that this is very important. But for now, enjoy the pictures!

To our blog visitors

We have had close to 100 people visit our blog since we started it in December. HOWEVER, only 3 people have ever left a comment. We would love to hear from you, and know who is following along our journey. To do that, you go to the bottom of the post you want to comment on, and click on 'comments'. It will bring you to a screen where you can leave your comment. It will not show up immediately, as I have to moderate each one.
As I said, your suppport, your prayers and thoughts mean a lot to us, and it's a nice way to keep in touch!
Mike and Barb and kiddos

Uebersetzung: www.chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/unsere-blog-besucher.html

Family picture for our Dossier

I really like this family picture. It is from last Christmas. What I like are the happy faces and for once, there are no fake smiles! That's quite rare ;-))

Uebersetzung: www.chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/familienfoto.html

Dossier

This is what our dossier looked like, before I sent it our agency for review. We are still waiting for our Immigration approval (the "magic" I 171-H), and then we'll have to authenticate the last 2 documents and we will be done with our paperchase.

The story of my dolls

Growing up, I had two very special dolls - Selina (tall, blond doll in the picture), and Juergli (blond baby). They are called Sasha Dolls, after their designer, Sasha Morgenthaler, who was Swiss. My sister and I played with our dolls a lot - dressing them up, doing their hair and having fashion shows. They quit making these dolls after a fire destroyed the factory, or the mold, or both. In the 90's they started making Sasha Dolls again, but their faces were not as soft and delicate as the original dolls, but they were still Sasha dolls. The day I found out that we were expecting a girl, I went and bought her her first doll, a Sasha doll baby (with the red/white striped top). Sadly enough,this second series of Sasha dolls was discontinued again after a few years. Almost 2 years ago, I found an asian baby from that second series on Ebay. I wanted her badly, but somehow it didn't work out. I was able to find her from a different source, and bought her. To me, she represented the desire to someday adopt from China. And even if I never did, she would still be special to me. If we ever did adopt, this doll would be our daughter's. Now I can't wait until her doll-Mama comes home!

To my Mei Mei (=little sister)

My name is Anya. We are praying for BoBo. Since I was five I was hoping for a china sister. Now my wish came true! I can't wait till we get her. I have been getting books from the library

about china. I want to know how it feels like.

We will share a room together. Maybe some day

we will get another china girl. I hope no one

will laugh at her. I hope my Mom and Dad get

me lots of presents!

Here she is!

Here is what we know about BoBo (her Nickname)

She was born on February 20, 2004

She has been in Foster care for the past 2 years (which is another totally COOL story, but I will write about that some other time)

She lives in the Hunan Province of China (see Map)

She is described as introverted and shy, very interested in her surroundings, loves to help adults to do things around the house, loves to play with a cloth doll, her favorite toy, and loves to be outside.

According to her development report she seems to be right on target for her age.

Looking at the picture I would have to say she loves to eat BREAD! Now if that is not fitting!

Introducing Bo Bo

On January 24, I was in the McDonald's Drive thru with Elia, when I received "THE CALL" from Pam in the Waiting Child Department at CCAI. I had emotions that are really hard to describe - it went from "Oh my, I'm just about to hear about my daughter", to "what in the world are we doing?". It's kind of like having an ultrasound and you're about to hear the words "It's a girl (or a boy) - and you just sit there and can't believe it's happening. Needless to say, I had to put Pam on hold for a moment to get Elia's food, and then I pulled over into the parking lot - just to keep everyone safe ;-).
Pam asked if we would be interested in reviewing the file of a little girl who is almost three years old. Are you kidding??? BRING IT ON! She gave me some basic information over the phone, and promised to email me everything, including pictures, right away. I had to go to work for a while, so I was unable to look at everything she sent me until later that afternoon. Mike was out of town all week, so I wasn't able to look at the email with him either.
Driving home was strange - what will I feel when I look at her? Will it be love at first sight? Will I just "know", and HOW do we decide? To me, that's the hard part about the Waiting child program - we can say yes or no to a referral. But it's not like I'm deciding between a green car or a red car - this is a CHILD, and very likely OUR child we are looking at!
And so here I was, looking at the pictures of a very serious looking little girl who has just the sweetest face and cute cute chubby cheeks and beautiful kissy lips. Wow! Her head is shaped a lot like Elia's we think, and you can see how soft her hair has got to be!
I printed her pictures, and as soon as the big kids came home from school, I showed Anya the picture of BoBo. I wish I had the camera ready, because her face just lit up, and she was SO HAPPY to look at this precious little girl. What a dream come true for her!
So, what have we decided? We decided to ask the Chinese Government permission to adopt BoBo, and that so called Letter of Intent went to our Agency on January 31st. It may take 1 - 2 months until we know more about their decision, and all we can do now is pray that her heavenly Father will continue to watch over her, just as he has the last three years.


By the way, January is a special month for me when it comes to Baby news.... it was almost exactly 10 years ago when I found out that I was pregnant with our "miracle baby", now 9 year old Nico! Six years ago in January Alex was born, and so the legacy goes on....

How does the China adoption process work??

There are 3 important parts to the the adoption process from China:

1. You work with an international adoption agency who will guide you through collecting lots of documents from various "authorities" (Doctors, Sheriff's office, employer...) as well as some documents we had to work on ourselves. I always envisioned this process to be much more daunting than it turned out to be, honestly!
2. You find a Social worker how will conduct a so called homestudy: She will have several meetings with your family to determine whether she can recommend you or not to become an adoptive parent.
3. You apply with USCIS, which is part of the Dept of homeland security, to get permission to bring a foreign-born child into the US.

Once you have all these needed documents (called the "paperchase"), you have to have them notarized, certified by the State they originated from, certified by the Department of State in D.C., and finally authenticated by the Chinese embassy.

Once your dossier is complete, your agency will review it, translate it and send it to China. This is the magic DTC date (Dossier to China). Once the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) has received your dossier, they will log you into their system. You will be notified about this even more important LID (Log in Date).

This process is the same for all adoptive parents.

What is different is the program you choose to be in. In the Non-special-needs program (healthy infants and young toddlers with no known medical conditions) the CCAA will send you a referral of a child based on your LID. The approximate wait in this program is 24 - 36 months. In the Waiting Child program the agencies receive profiles of infants, toddlers and older children who have a special medical need, like a clubfoot, cleft lip or palate, birthmarks, Hepatitis, missing/extra fingers or toes, spina bifida, scars etc. They agency will refer you a child who matches your "request" (general age range, gender and special need you are open to). Once you accept your referral, you send a LOI (Letter of intent) to the CCAA, asking for permission to adopt that particular child. Once approved, you submit your dossier (if not done so already), and then the CCAA will invite you to travel to China and adopt your child a few months later. The process from match to travel is anywhere from 7 - 9 months.

In both programs you travel to China for 14 - 16 days to complete the adoption process and apply for a visa for your child, so he or she will become a US citizen upon your return to the US.

Deutsch:www.chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/02/china-adoption.html

A good laugh :-))

I just found these pictures, and I thought they were just too funny! Don't get me wrong - I'm not making fun of Non-englisch speakers, as I know well enough what it is like to be one of them ( I still laugh about some of the stuff I say, even after almost 13 years in the US!)

Our Adoption Timeline

This is where you can see how far we have come in our adoption process:

1. July 10, 2006 Mailed paperwork for the Waiting Child program to our adoption agency, CCAI http://chinesechildren.org
2. July 27, 2006 Mailed application to Home study agency
3. July 27, 2006 Requested Doctor's letters for home study agency
4. July 31, 2006 Mailed formal adoption application to CCAI
5. August 9, 2006 Adoption Application approved by CCAI
6. August 9, 2006 Requested Mike's Birth Certificate
7. August 11, 2006 Mailed agency agreement and first payment
8. August 16, 2006 Received Mike's Birth Certificate
9. August 23, 2006 Ordered Birth Certificate (Barb) and Marriage Certificate from Switzerland
10. September 6, 2006 Barb becomes a US citizen
11. September 15, 2006 Barb applies for US passport
12. September 21, 2006 Swiss Consulate unable to Certify Swiss Marrige Certificate without proper Apostille FROM Switzerland - ordered new one.
13. October 9, 2006 First home study visit with social worker
14. October 16, 2006 Second home study visit (Mike)
15. October 16, 2006 Mailed I-600A to Denver USCIS
16. October 25, 2006 Third home study visit (Barb)
17. October 25, 2006 Police clearance reports received
18. November 10, 2006 Last home study visit
19. November 13, 2006 Medical exam Mike and Barb
20. November 21, 2006 Fingerprints done Mike and Barb
21. November 22, 2006 Received Medical reports
22. December 1, 2006 Homestudy in Review at CCAI
23. December 11, 2006 Received home study
24. December 11, 2006 Sent documents (except I-171) to Cheyenne for State certification
25. December 22, 2006 Sent documents to Washington D. C. to Dept of State certification
26. January 11, 2007 Received documents from Dept of State, sent off to Chinese Embassy
27. January 11, 2007 Sent Marriage license to Swiss Consulate for certification - again! Hope it works this time around!
28. January 16, 2007 Vaccinations Barb
29. January 24, 2007 REFERRAL!!!! We can't believe it's here!!!
30. January 29, 2007 Vaccinations Mike
31. January 29, 2007 Update Home study done, requested Andi's background check, since this is all the USCIS is waiting for (and we didn't know) - good thing we checked!
32. January 30, 2007 Discussed care plan for BoBo with our Pediatrician
33. January 31, 2007 LOI sent to our agency
34. February 2, 2007 Our LOI goes to China
35. February 8, 2007 Received our certified marriage license from the Swiss Consulate in San Francisco.
36. February 20, 2007 BoBo turns 3
37. February 20, 2007 We received our I-171-H
38. February 21, 2007 Mailed I-171 to Cheyenne for State Certification
39. March 6, 2007 Our completed dossier arrives at CCAI and is moved to translation.
40. March 6, 2007 PRE-APPROVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
41. March 7, 2007 DTC (Dossier to China)
42. March 10, 2007 Care package sent
43. March 12, 2007 Our Dossier is hand-delivered to the CCAA
44. March 12, 2007 Log in Date (LID)
45. April and May 2007 Repaint, redecorate and rearrange kids' rooms
46. May 3, 2007 Sent another care package to orphanage
47. May 9, 2007 Agency notification that our dossier is in the Match room at CCAA
48. May 10, 2007 Final vaccinations Barb
49. May 17, 2007 LOA ("Letter seeking confirmation of adopter") on day 66 since LID
50. May 23, 2007 received updated information on BoBo
51. June 1, 2007 received Visas to travel to China
52. June 11, 2007 final care package sent
53. June 14, 2007 TA!!!! (=Travel approval) on day 94 since LID
54. June 27, 2007 Leaving for China
55. July 2, 2007 Nina day!
56. July 3, 2007 Adoption day
57. July 11, 2007 Consulate appointment in Guangzhou
58. July 14, 2007 HOME
59. August 5, 2008 Readoption hearing
    
    

Here she is... kind of :-)))

Here I was - complaining about not having an ultrasound picture ;-)) I know, details are a little fuzzy, but I can tell it's a girl and she is beautiful!

Uebersetzung
http://http://chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/01/erste-foto-oder-so-aehnlich.html

And now it's 2007

I cannot even begin to imagine what this year will bring for our family. Our new daughter has been a part of us for quite some time, at the same time it almost seems unreal that it will acutally happen, probably this year.

I have no growing belly to show off, no ultrasound pictures to pass around, and we know that she will look nothing like us AT ALL. This is such a new experience. What helps me a lot is knowing that adoption is very close to God's heart, since he adopted ME into his family. I would say that this was a HUGE risk he took. And I'm so thankful he did.

We wish you a very happy 2007 . I will share more about the general adoption process when we get back to the US.

Signing off from Switzerland....