Letter to Madeline

Dear Maddie ~

One week ago today I saw your sweet face for the very first time. The first moment that your photo opened on my monitor, a lightbulb turned on in my head and everything became clear, crystal clear. In that one tiny spec of time, I knew that God answered every prayer that your daddy and I have ever prayed for you - and many, many more that we didn't even know to ask for.

Your sweet face was the face I had been trying to picture for four years but couldn't quite see. However, the moment I saw you I felt as if I had known your face all my life. In less than an instant I recognized you, my daughter - there was no question, no doubt - we belong together, we are family. You are my daughter, born in my heart. You are the one that your daddy and I have loved so fiercely since long before you were born, the one that my arms ache for. In that instant I knew why we had to wait for four years... because you are part of God's perfect plan. In that instant, I fully understood the meaning of "God's perfect timing."

Sweet Baby Maddie, my heart aches for the great losses you have already suffered in your short life. Your daddy and I recognize that the events of the next two months will be another source of immense grief for you - as you are taken away from your familiar surroundings, from the foster family you have grown to love so much, from familiar sounds and smells. We will be there to comfort you and help you get through it. We promise to be patient and to give you the time you need to grieve those losses. We also recognize that when you are placed in our arms for the first time, we have had four years to get used to the idea of the three of us as a family. But, you will not have had the luxury of that time. Again, we will give you the time you need.

Your daddy and I promise to love and nurture you; to teach you about God's love, about faith, and the importance of prayer; and to protect you. We promise to love you enough to let you make mistakes sometimes, and we will teach you about making good choices. We promise to raise you to be proud of who you are, proud of your Chinese heritage. We promise to take time to celebrate life's golden nuggets as they are presented to us and we promise to address difficult issues.

As you are starting your day, dear Maddie, your daddy and I pray that you can feel our love from half a world away.

All our love,

Mommy (& Daddy)

Let the Nesting Begin!!

My head is still in the clouds but reality is starting to set in. We've got a lot to do in the next 8 weeks!

1. meet with the doctor to go through Maddie's referral paperwork
2. apply for travel visas (Thank goodness I can count on Doug for this and the rest of the paperwork!)
3. clean the house from top to bottom
4. buy a crib
5. set up the nursery
6. clean out the closets (OK, I may be getting just a little too ambitious with this whole nesting thing)
7. register at Target, Burlington Coat Factory, and Amazon
8. shop (diapers, formula, list is too long to go into here)
9. baby showers
10. get absolutely everything caught up at work so that I can be out for awhile
11. I could go on and on, but I'm freaking myself out seeing all of this in black and white!

Now that things have settled down, here are a few more details from the day we got the referral. Doug was in North Carolina visiting his dad when we got the call. Our adoption coordinator pulled us together in a phone conference to give us the news. While we would really have liked to have been together for the special event, it was nice that he got to share that moment with his dad. He does not get to see him very often.

By the time we received the email with the photos a few hours later, Doug was at the airport getting ready to fly back to Atlanta. We had agreed to wait to open the email until we could do so together - over the phone. I have never seen or heard my husband at a loss for words, but when we both saw those photos for the first time, I heard him gasp and then nothing... he was speechless!! He later told me that at that moment it hit him like a ton of bricks, "From now on, absolutely everything I do is for that little girl." He's going to be a wonderful daddy!

Of course, I was an emotional wreck. I was at work, in my office with the door shut, trying to be discreet. But my team informed me that they could hear me... crying, laughing, squealing, etc. etc. Needless to say, even though I was at work I didn't get any actual work done the rest of the day on Monday!

Here are a few more details that we learned when the stork (in the form of FedEx) dropped off our paperwork yesterday. Madeline's name, Yi Xiao Li means Morning Jasmine Flower. I suggested that maybe we should just name her Jasmine. But Doug and I both agreed that Jasmine Snow sounds too much like a stripper name... not gonna happen!! LOL

The Eliases and we were both matched with our daughters by the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) on Christmas Day!!! What a beautiful Christmas present! For the past four Christmases, Doug and I have agreed not to buy each other Christmas presents and instead save that money for our adoption fund. Never once did I imagine that it would play out like this.

We ask for continued prayers from you, our family and friends. Over the next few months Maddie will be going through immense grief. This article helped me to understand a little better what she will be experiencing: http://www.a4everfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=53&Itemid=120.

Madeline's BFF, Kya Jin Elias

Our friends Kris & Shawn have been paperchasing and working on their own journey right along with us. We submitted our dossiers to our agency at the same time, along with a request that, if possible, we'd like to receive our referrals from the same place. Our adoption coordinator added a note to our dossiers when she submitted them to China and they made it happen! Both of our daughters are in foster care but are being supervised by the same orphanage in Yiyang, Jiangxi, China. Kya is two months older than Madeline and we all agree that she is just precious.

Introducing Madeline Li Snow!

Doug and I are ecstatic to announce that after a 4-year wait, we are the proud parents to a beautiful baby girl!!! We are over the moon with excitement and so in love with her already! God has answered our prayers and she was so worth the wait.

Here is what we know so far:

Chinese Name: Yi Xiao Li

DOB: 6/6/2008

As of 10/17/2008 she was 24.8 in long and weighed 13 lbs

Jiangxi Province, china

Maddie is currently in foster care. This is an answer to our prayers. This means that she is loved and well cared for. Her chubby cheeks and hands are further proof that she has been very well cared for and that she is healthy.

She is a moderate sleeper, holds her head up when placed on her stomach, rolls over, is able to discern the direction of voices, responds to her name, likes music, and laughs out loud. And, most importantly, just like her father, she is obstinate sometimes!! Go figure. :)

Doug and I, along with my mom, will travel to China in 6-8 weeks to bring home our precious daughter.

Waiting on a Very Important Phone Call!

European agencies are making phone calls with the next batch of referrals. We found out this morning that China set the stork loose last Friday. That means we should be getting our referral today or tomorrow!!! Stay tuned...

We missed it by a day!!

Yesterday we received the following in an email from our adoption coordinator:

Well, I have good news and bad news.
Bad news: the referral group only went to 2/23/06.
Good news: you will be getting your referral next month!

Our Log-In Date (LID) is 2/24/2006. This month, China matched through 2/23/2006. We missed the cutoff by one lousy day. After sulking for a couple of days that we will have to spend a fourth "last Christmas without Maddie", I'm getting over it and am now looking forward with great anticipation to the first week in January!!!

November Referrals

This past week, China matched several more adoptive parents with babies. Unfortunately, it looks like they only matched a whopping 2 days - through LID 2/17/2006. Our LID is 2/24/2006. We're still holding out hope for a December referral, but the little bright light at the end of the tunnel got a little dimmer.