2 DAYS

2 DAYS!!!!

Just 2 days until we board a plane and are on our way to China.

No words..

There really are no words to fully articulate the complex intensity of emotion we're feeling right now, and at the same time it's nearly impossible to completely process. I've said before that I won't be able to process any of it until we finally have him in our arms -- but really? I think it may take quite a bit longer than that. There are adoptive-parents that say they aren't able to fully process their adoption trip for months.

It's an odd experience to feel you know and love a little one so very much and have for months, yet in reality you don't know them at all. After-all they've lived without you and you without them for 2 1/2 years of their life (and on opposite sides of the earth to add). And they don't know you at all either -- they *may* have seen pictures of you, but ultimately when they meet you, you'll look funny, smell funny, and certainly sound funny to them. Essentially we're foreign strangers yet family all at the same time. Our paths have crossed only through the electromagnetic waves of the internet, a lengthy multi-bureaucratic process, a handful of pictures, and through mountain-high loads of paper. And now in 9 days our eyes and bodies will finally meet. Our heartbeats will rest yet fiercely beat against one another's; one heartbeat will be groaning to offer love, the other will be fearful and grieving. And our journey will start there, in a hotel room in a province along China's southeastern coast. It will be a journey to show as much love as we possibly can to him, to grieve with him, to show him what 'family' means, to show him what a mommy and daddy is, to make up for 2 1/2 years of lost time and with that means working on attachment and bonding that normally takes place from the moment a baby is born (even before). What a journey it will be. This adoption process has been a unique life-changing journey itself, but now the real one begins.

What we're doing now..

These are busy times! Did I mention to you that we're coordinating an out-of-state move (to occur after we're back from China)? But anyway, with homeschooling, numerous errands, tons of house-showings, an open house, two offers, inspections, and finally in contract - you'd think we'd be busy enough with all that!

I just began packing (for 5 including the baby!). Our bedrooms are torn up at the moment with all kinds of odds-and-ends laying on the floor ready to be packed -- I'm just trying to figure out the best way to pack it all. I keep reminding myself that nearly everything can be purchased there if it's forgotten. The main essentials we need to make sure we have are meds, cash, and travel documents.

We'll be 14 hours *ahead* of your time while in China (for those of you in EST). So, we will get him 2:30AM EST Sunday morning (4:30PM for us on Sunday).

Our in-country schedule::

Thursday; Nov.17: Fly to Beijing (6:30a to Detroit; 11:30a to Beijing)
Friday; Nov.18: Arrive around 4:30p in Beijing
Saturday; Nov.19: Tour Beijing (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, etc)
Sunday; Nov.20: Early AM fly to his province; 4:30PM he will be brought to our hotel to meet us
Monday;Nov.21: Finalize adoption in Civil Affairs
Tuesday;Nov.22: Free day
Wednesday;Nov.23: Free day
Thursday; Nov.24: Free day
Friday; Nov.25: Fly to Guangzhou (Guangdong province)
Saturday; Nov.26: William's visa medical exam and visa paperwork check
Sunday; Nov.27: Free day
Monday; Nov.28: Visa medical report pick-up
Tuesday; Nov.29: Visa appointment/oath taking ceremony
Wednesday; Nov.30: Visa pick-up
Thursday; Dec.1: Fly home (Des Moines)!!!! We will arrive around 4:30p.

We will update as much as we can while we're there!

Please pray...

for the Lord to prepare little William's heart and mind.

for his health.

for his and ours transition and adjustment.

for safe travels.

the trip goes as smoothly as possible, and for our nerves to remain calm.

And I'm sure there is sooo much more I could ask you to pray for, but my brain is somewhat mush at the moment! Thank you for praying and being there for us.

So 2 days!!! Can you believe it?!!? WE'RE COMING SWEET BOY..!

TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!!

WE. HAVE. TRAVEL. APPROVAL!!!

We will be leaving Nov. 17, and will have lil William in our arms on Nov. 21!!! 

*THANK YOU* to those who've recently donated. It has been an overwhelming and emotional past couple of days.

One of those donations is anonymous - whoever you are, thank you, thank you, thank you. You don't know what that means to us, and we are so humbly blessed by your generosity.

Another donation is from another sweet friend who's also an adoptive-mama-in-process that's on the same timeline as us and who I've been praying with to travel ASAP, and I'm rejoicing with her today because they received TRAVEL APPROVAL also, and will be leaving soon for their 10 year old son!! These mamas are fierce, I tell you. <3 I cannot wait to pay it all forward to other adoptive-families one day.

Our adoption-village is showin' up! We're so thankful for you. You are certainly loving lil William all the way home!!

Less than THREE weeks until travel. Truly unbelievable!!

We'll be in China during Thanksgiving, and boy is that fitting!! We will be as thankful as ever to have our sweet boy finally in our arms.

Thank you for praying. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for being a part of this process with us!!

                                                          We are coming sweet boy!!!

www.adopttogether.org/stumpfamily

<3

Next Stop: Travel Approval!!!

After we received our I-800, our Article 5 was dropped off on October 10, and was picked up October 25!!

What is Article 5?

It's a notice to request our travel approval from the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption). Once Article 5s are picked up/issued, travel approvals come anywhere from just a handful of days to two weeks.

We very well could be traveling in just THREE weeks, friend!!!

**Deep breath**

So many emotions right now. So beyond excited to finally be able to hold our baby boy and kiss that face we've been staring at since June. Yet we have sooooo much to do!! Besides the adoption, we have quite a bit going on. So preparing for travel ontop of everything, wooooo-buddy!! I've got peace it'll all work out though, and I know that once he's in our arms that all else will fade.

Soooo, what are we waiting on now?? TRAVEL APPROVAL!!! Please pray with us that we receive travel approval ASAP!! Once we have that and our Consulate appointment set, we can start booking.

I haven't even thought about diapers, wipes, and other baby/toddler necessities! Oh my. Funny how those things are so essential during your own pregnancy, but they're quite honestly the *last* things on your mind during an adoption process. You're more obsessed over attachment, bonding, cocooning, healing trauma, orphanage behaviors, enough stimulation but not overdoing it, nutrition, and more...and more.

I really cannot wrap my mind around the fact that we may have our sweet boy in our arms a little over 3 weeks from now...

Thank you for praying!!! Stay tuned!!!!

Amazed

This process is long, amazing, exhausting, financially depleting, complicated, growing, bumpy, lonely at times..and of course totally worth it.

The other night while praying over precious William and just talking to the Lord about our entire process, I broke. Sometimes you carry something for a while and just..break.

The next day I went ahead and wrote the names of the few people who've donated to our account, posted it on Facebook, and re-posted about our puzzle fundraiser.

Little did I know that $1,500.00+ would be donated *that* day. If you know me, you know I don't cry easily. I've always tried to hold back (one reason: I'm the ugliest, I mean UGLIEST crier you've ever seen). Blame the adoption hormones or whatever else, but I broke down again. Not only a huge financial help, but it was much-needed encouragement.

Before I go further, please know we don't expect anyone to contribute financially, in fact, we know some of you probably are against any type of adoption fundraising, and you're entitled to feeling that way about it, and we respect that completely.

Soon after posting on Facebook, a sweet incredible adoptive-mama-in-process commented that she was donating toward three puzzle pieces in honor of her THREE children waiting in our son's province. Yes, you heard me...three!! All aged 2-3 years old.

I was speechless.

You're telling me, of all people...a mama who's in an adoption process for not one, or two, but three sweet babies is contributing to our process for one?! Friends...there are no words. No words.

Was I completely shocked though? Not really.

You see, I've watched in secret fundraising groups led by adoptive-mamas, and have *seen* with my very eyes other adoptive-mamas both already home and in-process come and band together to help others get their children home. It's absolutely one of the most miraculous beautiful things I've ever witnessed. These same mamas are newly home, quite honestly probably still recovering from all the costs ontop of everything else involved in an adoption; others are in-process struggling to come up with thousands themselves. And they know first-hand that adoption changes lives, and want to see these children get home! Amazing is an understatement.

When starting this process I was told by other adoptive-parents to be prepared to watch those who you'd think would give you support wont, and those you'd least expect will.

I also know that those in process or who have adopted know first-hand the struggles there are when faced with a $15k+ bill staring you in the face ontop of all the other complexities in the process. When you experience it all yourself, you can't help but to help others in the same valley you once were in.

As for that dear friend who's in process for three littles in our son's province who gave toward our process, will you cover them in prayer when you think to pray for us?? Thank you.

If you missed our puzzle fundraiser post - we're having one to where you can "buy" a puzzle piece for $20 (donated to our account). We'll write your name on the back of the piece, and once finished we will frame the puzzle in a see-through (front and back) frame to where our sweet boy will be able to see for himself all those that helped bring him home piece-by-piece. Are you the next piece??
adopttogether.org/stumpfamily

Piece-By-Piece!

Today we're launching our puzzle fundraiser!!

We're looking at traveling in just over a month from today, at most, 1 1/2. It is getting down-to-the-wire, and we're humbly asking for your help. Any bit helps.

Would you consider being a piece of the puzzle in loving lil William all the way home?? If you donate $20 to our AdoptTogether account, your name will be written on a piece of the puzzle. Purchase two pieces, then your name will be written on two pieces of the puzzle! This will be a forever-cherished-treasure to be hung in his bedroom (framed in a see-through frame so it can  be flipped around at any moment for him to see everyone who helped bring him home, piece-by-piece).

www.adopttogether.org/stumpfamily

We're grateful beyond what words can express for your encouragement, prayers, and moral support so far. As always, *thank you.*And thank you for considering in being a piece of the puzzle in seeing him home.

800 Approval!

We received our 800 approval today, friend!!

In other words - the US (Homeland Security; US Citizenship & Immigration) *APPROVED* us to adopt our sweet boy!!

Another approval??

You've heard me say "approve" quite a bit haven't you? The biggest and main approvals through this process is first, the approval to adopt from China in general from the US (800A); second - approval to adopt your child from China (known as Letter of Acceptance/LOA); lastly the 800 which is a petition to adopt your specific child from the US side (USCIS)  -- which is what we received today!!! This is the LAST big approval (that is before travel approval)!

These last steps will FLY right by!!  I'd love to be telling you right now we're able to get on the plane Nov.4 (our agency's next travel date for his province), but it looks like we'll be missing that by days (yes, just days!!) -- that's honestly been hard to swallow, and we hate that our baby boy has to wait another month just because of missing a scheduled travel date.

So since we're missing Nov.4, we're looking at Dec.2, and meeting him Dec.5. These are not approved dates, but we don't have any reason to believe we'd miss Dec.2 for sure. We'd be coming home Dec.16th or so -- just in time for Christmas!!! It will certainly go down as the best Christmas we've ever had!

So today marks less than two months to go!! That seems so far away, yet I'm overwhelmed right now with an ever-growing to-do list! Just so much to do, but I'm putting it all in God's hands and trusting He's got control. He's. Got. This.

What's next??

We're currently working on our applications for our Chinese visas. We're also waiting now for the National Visa Center (NVC) to send us a letter stating they've notified the US Consulate in Guangzhou (China - where his adoption will be finalized) that our 800 was issued. This should come by the end of this week. After we receive this, we'll then file the DS-260, which is applying for his US visa. Then we'll wait for our "Article 5" (a notice that the consulate sends to request our travel approval from the CCCWA), then last but certainly not least, we wait for our travel approval from China!!!! We're almost there!!!

Keep on praying!!! It's needed more than ever!! If you haven't stopped to check out our profile on https://www.adopttogether.org/stumpfamily, please check it out! Stay tuned!!

Help Love Him Home

With only two months left to go (and very unlikely but possibly only one) -- we figured it was past time to kick things into high gear.

Quite honestly, I'm writing to you today with fear trembling through my fingers, and nervousness pounding my heart like never before - but there is a sweet lil boy on the other side of the world that is waiting for us, and he's our motivation. 

As you've heard me say, we've currently paid 9,000.00 in adoption fees and related expenses up to this point.

With that said, the biggest fee is due soon (a whopping $15,000.00)! This fee is the main adoption program fee which includes a $5,700.00 orphanage donation, and the rest of the costs go to  cover his Chinese passport and U.S. visa fees costs associated with obtaining updates, costs for personnel, administrative overhead, training and education both in the U.S. and China; Legal adoption services and communications, working with government and agency authorities, central authority fees (including fees related to these services), and child welfare projects in China.

We have prepared to pay the rest of the costs ourselves out-of-pocket (approximately 13k for all traveling expenses which includes our visas, airfare (including in-country flights), guide fees, transfer fees, food, hotel, and more. We are also paying a couple thousand dollar post-placement visit and processing fee as well, all totaling over 15k. 

We understand this is our choice. But we also understand it was not his choice to be an orphan. We also certainly do not expect any help, but will graciously take any help that's offered.

I'll always remember a part of one of my favorite adoption books, where the author speaks of being in process to adopt his son from Russia, and an elderly man at his church randomly offered a 10,000.00 check to help. The author continues to write and said he refused the check and said he could never accept such a gift, then the elderly man looked straight in his eyes and simply said, "Look, this isn't about you." Those words stuck with me since. It isn't about us. It never was.

We are beyond thankful for the prayers and words of encouragement that have helped bring us to this point. There are no words to express our gratitude in that alone. We've been asked by a few people how they can help monetarily. I know that when we've helped others in the past, we wanted our money to go the *farthest,* and we've always preferred to donate directly to a cause without purchasing something (let's say I pay $25 for a t-shirt for a fundraiser, the fundraising family gets approximately $15 of that -- that's 10 more dollars I'd prefer just to donate directly -- but I understand why this is amazing for those who like to shop, etc). We also know people are uncomfortable sending checks through the mail, so we looked into our options and created an AdoptTogether account (a fundraising site solely for adoptive families). Most donations are tax-deductible. Once you look at our profile, feel free to check out "How It Works" and watch the video. Many adoptive-families (some we know) have successfully used AdoptTogether.

http://adopttogether.org/stumpfamily

Any amount will help, but if you're not able to give and still want to contribute - your prayers are coveted the most. If you want to put some legs on those prayers, feel free to share our story. Share our blog. And share our AdoptTogether site. Every 'Share' helps! You just never know who out there has adoption laid upon their hearts and may be blessed in contributing.

If you missed it, go to our previous post where we introduce our little guy to you!! Yes, there are pictures!!

adopttogether.org/stumpfamily