THE WAIT

As Christmas draws near, I have received a lot of questions from family and friends lately about when we will get our Maggie. We are certainly inching closer, but still so far away. I pray for a miracle speed up everyday and wish on every star that next year at this time we will be holding Maggie or a picture of her and getting ready to travel. Some days I feel very optimistic and other days, not so positive. In my heart I know that there is a reason for everything and that when I do hold Maggie, I will know just why we had to wait so long. She will be the reason. God has chosen this little angel for us already..........she is just not here yet. I visit a China adoption forum everyday and another waiting mother shared an excerpt of a letter that her mother had written her. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to share it:

My mom wrote me a letter many months ago, after I had cried to her tears of frustration about the wait. The letter was so important to me, I’ve kept it - and maybe it will provide some encouragement here to someone. Some excerpt of what she wrote:“I’m thinking of you tonight, wishing I could run over and make your heart lighter. It does seem forever till you hold your daughter - but the certainty is that you *will* hold her. You will know her all your life on - she will always be your daughter. There is another woman across the world who will not know this child. This child will never know her as mother….“That, too is a certainty. When you feel so discouraged, try to pray for that mother’s grief and healing. Her sacrifice is your blessing and your daughter’s. What I am trying to say is *not* to feel guilty about this Chinese mother, or feel guilty about your discouragement. That is what it is. But, to find a way out of it. The wait is prolonged, but it will not be forever. The gift of your daughter will be forever….”
What Mom tried to gently remind me is that ultimately, time is on our side — we will be forever families.

Thanksgiving with the turkeys (Browns)!

Aren't we blessed! Thanks Aunt Jo and Uncle Gary for opening your home and hosting Thanksgiving every year! What memories!

Great News!!!!

We received word today from our adoption agency that our dossier(paperwork) is out of review. Here is the exciting letter:

Hello September LID families,

I wanted to let you know that we received word from our Beijing office that the CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with their office before September 30, 2006. Yeah September 2006 is out of review!!!!!! Congratulations to all of you!

Kim O'Bryant
Referral Counselor
Great Wall China Adoption

This means that the Chinese officials have cleared us to adopt. Now we just wait some more! Here is an excerpt from a letter from the president of our adoption agency, Snow Wu:

I know right now, the thing on your mind is the long wait. Last night, I talked to the CCAA officials and expressed all of your concern over this long wait. CCAA officials told me that they are very concerned over the wait as well. They have held many trainings with the orphanage directors to teach them how to get children's file ready, and they encourage them to send the children's file to the CCAA so the children can be matched with a family. The officials are not able to provide any timeline, but, assure me that once the backlog of dossiers is matched, the wait will go down. I still ask that you keep your faith in Chinese adoptions. As I said, it will happen. Please do not give up your hope!

This sounds encouraging as well, except to what date do they count the backlog of dossiers?
Oh well, it will happen!!!

Fall and Halloween Pics!

Thanks to Larry and Jackie loaning us their trailer, we got to have our 2nd annual hayride around the neighborhood to trick or treat! It was so much fun!! Pictured are: McKenna, Maci, and Tyler, Baylee and Lais. Lais has never been trick or treating, so she discovered it was a lot of fun!

Every year since Baylee was 9 months old, we have taken pictures at the Pumpkin Patch. She will be 18 and I will still be making her pose there!

We are in the review room!

Yeah! We made it to the review room with our adoption paper work!! The review room is where the China officials look over all the paper work and make sure that it is all correct and ok. We will breathe a big sigh of relief when we are out of the review room. The next room is the matching room! There are still 9 months of people ahead of us, but we are inching closer everyday to our Maggie! We received an email from our adoption agency today, stating that China is working on the continued lengthening adoption wait. They are receiving indications that things could move faster in the future. Well let's hope so!! We are still at least a year away, but we hope not much longer than that! All we can do is be patient, pray, and trust God.

Not much to report!

In one year, the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) adopted babies out to 4 months worth of dossiers. That means they got through 4 months worth of families waiting to adopt. They used to get through 12 months of families waiting. There is a rumor of a possible speed up in 2008. Let's keep our fingers crossed and our prayers to God for this to happen! All else is well on the Corderman Homefront. We are in a nice school routine now. Baylee loves school and her friends! I have a giant class of 25, 16 boys and 9 girls. With that many boys you can only imagine the energy level in my room, but the good news is that the kids all mostly get along and are very sweet! Lais is enjoying her transition into America and Enid High. She is doing well! Brian is still working hard and traveling way too much! We are all healthy and happy! More later!

Baylee's first day of 5th grade!

My baby is in 5th grade! She had a great day! She likes her teacher and the children in her class. She has some of her friends in her class and is getting more aquainted with others.

Introducing Lais!

Lais brought all kinds of food and candy from Brazil! She and Baylee had fun preparing cheese bread and brigaderios for us!

BEFORE and AFTER!

Getting ready for school is hard work, but lots of fun too! See the neat covered wagon Brian made me? He is so handy! It is Oklahoma's centennial this year, so I chose to do a western theme.

What goes up, must go down!

Well, things aren't so up in the air now, at least not with Lias! Yeah! Lias got an earlier flight! We pick her up from the airport at 8:15 Monday morning. That is going to be one early rising day, but we are so excited that we probably wouldn't sleep well anyway! After we pick her up, we plan on taking her to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast! Yum! Now, with the earlier flight, I will be able to get her enrolled on Monday too. Things have a way of working out. We just have to let go and let God! We will update you on her arrival later.

Up in the Air!

There are a lot of things up in the air right now in the Corderman household! I don't do too well with that. After a couple of fitful days, I finally released it to God! I don't know why I don't do that to begin with. I guess it's that old control issue I have trouble with. When am I going to learn that I am not in control? You would think with this baby wanting and a possible 3 year total wait for this adoption, I would have this control issue learned, but I don't. I am getting better though. Up in the air right now is: 1.) When is Lais coming? We have been given 3 different dates so far. The confirmed latest is August 14th. This date is so not good because I have open house that evening, so does Baylee, and so does Lais for that matter. The 14th would mean that Lais has one whole day to get adjusted before school starts. Kids are resilent and she would make it, but it certainly is not the ideal situation. Not only that, but we still would need to enroll her and buy school supplies, etc. Not to mention I have meetings on that "one day", the 15th. They are trying to change her flight schedule, but we have not heard anything yet. They may not be able to. 2.)Who will Baylee's teacher be, will she have any of her friends in her class, and will she have a good year? Let's face it, we worry over our children constantly. Their happiness is our happiness. When Baylee was a baby, my grandma Brown came to visit. I was in Baylee's room watching her breathe and telling my grandma how worrisome having a baby is. She said, "Oh honey, you have only just begun. This is the easy part." She was so right! I can only see it getting more and more worrisome as she grows. Wait till she drives!! Oh my goodness!! 3.)Will our school faculty unite, be nicer, and less judgemental of each other? Teaching is tough work. We need each other for support and encouragement. I hope things will improve in that direction. These "wills" and "whens" were starting to get to me and then I was reminded by Baylee to put it in God's hands. Who is the mother here? So back to my bible and my favorite verses written in the cover including: Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything; tell God your needs and don't forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus. Phillipians4:6,7 and So don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. Matthew 6:34 God's timing is perfect and he will take care of everything. We just have to quit worrying and trust him!!

Exciting News!

We are going to have a new member of our family! No.....it isn't Maggie yet! We hope to have her by next winter. Pray: Baby Maggie in 2008! We are welcoming a beautiful girl named Lais from Brazil into our home on August 13th. She is a foreign exchange student who is going to be a junior in high school this year. We have somewhat gotten to know her through emails but we are looking forward to meeting her in person. Baylee is so excited to have a big sister! She says that she will get to experiment having a big sister and then will get to be the big sister! We pray that we can teach Lais a lot about, not only our wonderful country, but our great state as well. With Oklahoma's centennial coming up....how perfect to learn about it now! We know she will teach us a lot about her country too! We also know she will be a precious addition to our family. She is a sweetheart! Her family seems pretty special as well.

Adoption Update

Well referrals have come in! They came in a little earlier than expected...hope this is a good sign!! Remember that referrals are babies matched with families. They also covered 5 days worth of LID's. In recent months they have only covered 2 days. Back in 2005 they were covering a whole month's worth of LID's every month. That was why it only took about 6 months to get your baby once your paper work was LID(logged in to China). I sure hope they start covering more and more days! Remember that we are LID September 4, 2006 and they just referred babies to families with LID's of November 17 - November 21, 2005. Hopefully they (CCAA- China Center for Adoption Affairs) will be done with 2005 before the end of the year. I thought I ought to explain the CCAA process. There are 3 rooms that our dossier(paperwork) has to go through while in China. The first room is the Translation Room. This is where they translate all our paperwork into Chinese. The next room is the Review Room. This is where they review all your paperwork and OK you to adopt. Our dossier is between the Translation Room and the Review Room. It is called pending review. They just got done reviewing June 2006 dossiers. They moved through June very fast. We hope this is also a good sign! The last room is called the Matching Room. This is the room that they choose a baby for your family! We obviously will rest easier when we get out of Review. Only 2 months of dossiers to go! I will keep you posted!

Louie and Gracie

Aren't they sweet! Louie is the one peeking over the fence. He is crazy, but loveable! He is 8. Gracie is our little baby. She is 4. Ariel (pictured in previous posts) is 7.

Laverne Trip

Since Brian is in Wisconsin, Baylee and I decided to go to Laverne to see the Grandmas. Boy, were we spoiled with good food and sweet company. It was so hard to leave. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family. Not only my precious grandmas, but aunts, uncles, and cousins too. Below are some pictures I took while we were there.

Lisa and Baylee at Aunt Carolyn's Soda Shop

Baylee, Jaci, Josie, and Jordi

Baylee and Grandma Brown