We did it!

It's been an incredibly stressful and emotional couple of days, but with incredible help from family, we have booked our flights and the countdown begins until we travel.  We ended up having to push our trip back a week, so our new dates are: flying out on the 30th, Gotcha Day on the 2nd, CA on the 12th, and flying home the 15th.  There were still a decent amount of seats left on both flights, so we were able to pick where we sit which is a huge blessing.  Now we just need to get a bunch of last minute things done, including a 24hr EEG for Asher :p  We could definitely use your prayers as we get everything done and prepare to leave.  Please also pray for Hannah, as her whole world is about to change.  Thank you!

~Carly

Update

We have travel approval and our Consulate Appointment is scheduled for November 3rd.  This means we will be flying out on October 23rd and meeting Hannah on October 26th!  We are struggling with our final costs though, and are much shorter in funds than we originally thought.  I know this is God's will and He will provide, but being this close to travel and this short on funds is scary.  Will you pray with us?  We need to come up with around $4,000 in a little over a weeks time.  Thank you for your continued support and love.  God willing, we will have our girl in our arms very soon and she will not face the horrible future of aging out.

~Carly

Update

Just thought I'd let you all know where we are in the process!  After receiving our I800 approval we were issued a GUZ # from the NVC (National Visa Center) that allowed us to fill out an online application for Hannah's visa.  That paperwork was then sent to China where an Article 5 will be issued.  Once that is dropped off/picked up (I'm told it will be September 29th) we will officially be in the TA (travel approval) wait!  There are upcoming holidays in the end of September and the beginning of October that will delay our travel and possibly delay us in getting TA, but I'm fairly confident that we will be traveling in mid to late October to bring home our girl!

We were excited the other day to receive all 7 of our passports back with our fresh 10 year visas in them!  All the kids and my brother-in-law will be traveling with us this time and I'm really excited.  It was incredibly hard to be away from our boys a year ago when we were in China to bring Asher home.  It's CRAZY that we will be in China pretty much one year from the time we were there last year!  If things get pushed back enough, we could potentially have close to identical travel dates.  We left last year on November 7th, Gotcha on the 10th, and CA on the 19th.  I definitely don't want to wait until November to meet our sweet Hannah, but if we have to, it would be pretty cool to have the dates be so close.

We have also finished our puzzle thanks to the generous donations that came in through our GoFundMe!  We are now roughly (it's pretty impossible to be exact at this point) $7,000 from being fully funded.  That is still a large amount, but our awesome God knows what He is doing and nothing is too big for Him!  We are SO thankful for the outpouring of love, support, and donations.  It has truly touched our hearts and we are so excited to share photos with you of Hannah in our arms.  It has been the body of Christ that has made all this possible!  We love you all!

~Carly

Update

We received our I800 provisional approval today!  We are moving very quickly and will be applying for Hannah's visa at the end of the week.  After that, we will have Article 5 and then wait for travel approval.  Because there is a holiday at the beginning of October, we will not be traveling until after October 13th, which is good because we got some disappointing news today.  After the long application process and waiting 90 days, we got a letter from Show Hope telling us we did not receive a grant.  This is very hard news, but we have faith in God's plan.  We still have puzzle pieces available to sponsor and will will be praying for God's direction for the rest of the funds.  Will you pray with us?  Thank you!

~Carly

Exciting news!

We received soft LOA yesterday!!  This means that China has officially approved our family to adopt Hannah and we are just waiting for the formal document to get to our agency.  That went crazy fast!  With Asher's adoption, it took right at 60 days for us to receive LOA and at that time that was pretty fast.  This time it only took around 14 days!  Because Hannah is aging out soon, the CCCWA is moving her file through faster than normal to make sure we have enough time to get to her before her birthday.  This is such exciting news and I honestly didn't expect it to come quite that fast.  We are still around $10,000 short of being fully funded and we won't hear back until September sometime about the two grants we applied for, so we are just trusting that God has a plan for these funds to be available when we need them.

We did have a very generous anonymous donation of $500 so we were able to add more pieces to our puzzle!  We have 88 pieces left that need sponsors and we would be so blessed if you'd consider being a part of this journey to bring Hannah home.  Will you share with your family, friends, and churches?  This is a great opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus and give a precious orphan a forever family.

We love you all!

~Carly

Puzzle update!

Our dossier is officially in China as of Monday!!  Now we wait to hear that it has been logged into China's system, and then we wait to hear it's been approved.  The timing on this part of the process is completely up to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) and has no rhyme or reason.  Our agency has asked for them to speed our process up because Hannah is aging out, but it's up to them whether or not they do it.

Barring some unforseen obstacle, we are roughly 2 months away from travel and still several thousand dollars short of being fully funded.  We recently found out about another grant that we are eligible for and we were able to get our application in right before their last deadline for the year.  We are now waiting to hear back from them and from Show Hope.  Other than that, we only have our puzzle fundraiser that still has the ability to raise more funds for us.

We just received a few more generous doantions and that leaves us with 140 pieces that have yet to be sponsored.  At $10 a piece, that has the ability to bring in $1,400 and that is a huge amount for us.

If you would like to be a part of this journey to Hannah, and sponsor a piece (or pieces!), all you have to do it click on the Paypal Donate button at the top left side of this blog page.  You can email me at carlyduvall1628 at hotmail.com to let me know what you'd like me to write on the back of your piece(s).

I will leave you with an updated picture of Hannah's puzzle.  You can finally see mama panda's eyes! :)

~Carly

Great news!

DTC today!!!

Update!

We are moving right along!  We got all of our dossier papers through the notarization, certification, and authentication process and now our dossier is at our agency for review.  After they have everything put together, reviewed, and translated, they will send our dossier to China and we will officially be DTC (documents to china)!!  God is again providing and your awesome generosity has allowed us to have the funds needed at each step so far and we are beyond grateful!  Our agency will be asking the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) to expedite our dossier by first logging it into their system faster than usual and then reviewing it faster than usual.  IF they comply with this, we could possibly be looking at mid October travel!  (I'm still kind of in shock at how fast this adoption has gone compared to Ashers!)

We also just ended our t-shirt fundraiser with a total of 21 shirts sold and a $190 profit for the adoption.  Thank you all SO much for your continued support through this second journey of adoption.

We will continue to have our PUZZLE FUNDRAISER going until all the pieces have been sponsored and you can click the link above for more info on how to support that.

We recently sent a care package to Hannah that included a translated letter from us, a photo album of family pics, some candy to share with friends and nannies, and a flash drive that they will hopefully fill with pictures of our sweet girl.  The amazing Angela from Ladybugs 'n Love put it together and will keep us updated on it.

We are getting SO excited to travel to China soon and meet our Hannah.  We are so very thankful that the whole family is traveling this time and we will all meet her together and have a wonderful two weeks of bonding time in Guangzhou.  My brother-in-law will also be traveling with us to help with the kids and experience the awesomeness of China :)  I'm anxious and nervous to find out how transversing the Hong Kong airport and then having a 14 1/2 hour plane ride with 5 kids will be!

Please continue to pray that this adoption process would proceed according to God's will and timetable and that He would prepare Hannah for all the changes that are approaching.  We love you all!

~Carly

T-shirt Fundraiser!

Because we are only 3-4 months from travel and still $11,000 short of being fully funded, we've decided to have a tshirt fundraiser!  We have to sell 11 to go to print but we'd love to sell at least 50.  We would love to have everyone sporting these awesome shirts that not only help raise awareness for adoption and orphans, but will also help us get to Hannah before she ages out.

Everyone has been so amazing, generous, and supportive and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  Tshirt Fundraiser Link

Update

We are still waiting for our I800a approval, but I thought I'd do a puzzle update and give everyone an idea of where we are.  The immigration approval we are waiting on could come any day.  As soon as that gets here, we will have all needed documents for our dossier, we will just need to take them to Indy for the stamps/signature and then send them to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for more stamps/signature.  After that, our documents go to our agency who will add them to a copy of the dossier we sent for Asher last year and they will send it to China.  At that point, we will be DTC (documents to China) and will begin the wait for final approval to adopt Hannah.  I went back and looked at Asher's timeline and it took 4 1/2 months from the time we were DTC until we traveled.  Right now, we have right at 4 1/2 months until Hannah ages out, so we are starting to get down to the wire.  I contacted our agency today to make sure we were still making good time and would still be able to get to her in time.  They said that yes, we were still looking okay and they would do everything in their power to get us to our girl in time.

At this time we are in need of two things: prayer and financial support.  We would love prayer that God would continue to guide our steps and things would happen according to His will and timing.  We also are about $11,000 short of the funds we will need to get to Hannah.  We have applied to Show Hope and will hear back in 90 days.  We also applied to Love Has Come but have not heard anything yet.  We received a grant from our church for $2,000 and are so very thankful for that.  It will help us get our dossier to China.  We also have our puzzle fundraiser still going.  We have 159 pieces left to sponsor and we would be SO very grateful to anyone who would be willing to come along side us in this journey.  It is $10 to sponsor a puzzle piece and we will write your name or family name on the back of each piece that you sponsor.  To sponsor a piece just click on the Paypal Donate button at the top left side of this blog and then email me at carlyduvall1628@hotmail.com if there is a different name you want on the back of the puzzle piece(s) than the name you use to donate.

We are so excited to meet Hannah and can't believe our whole family will be in China in 4 months or less!  Thank you all for your continued prayers, encouragement, and support, it means so much to us.  Below is a picture of our puzzle so you can see the progress.  Love you all!

~Carly

Another step forward!

Just a little update!  Today we received our hard copies of our updated homestudy from our social worker so I will be mailing that, along with other paperwork, to the USCIS ( U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) office.  Because our fingerprints haven't expired from when they were taken for Asher's adoption, they will be able to be refreshed instead of having to travel to Indy to get new ones done.  We will then wait for approval to come back.  When we have that, we will have all neccessary paperwork to update our dossier!  We will just need to go to Indy for the stamps/seal from the Secretary of State office and then we will mail the documents to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for their stamps/seal.  After that, they are off to China!  I can't believe how much faster this dossier process is with a reuse instead of starting from scratch!

We are so blessed and excited to be Hannah's parents.  We've gotten her room (she will share with Avery) together and we've been buying clothes and things for her.  Yesterday I layed out one of my favorite outfits we've gotten and just imagined her in it.  I can't believe we will be meeting her in 6 months or less!!

As always, thank you so much for your continued support through prayers, donations, and encouragement.  This is truly a village thing and we wouldn't be able to do it without you.  Love you all!

~Carly

Puzzle update!

I am so excited to tell you all that 114 puzzle pieces have already been sponsored!!  What an incredible blessing!  This is a 300 piece puzzle so there are only 186 pieces left to be sponsored.  We'd love for you to be a part of this journey to bring Hannah home and give her what she has been waiting for over TWELVE YEARS for: a family of her own!  This money that has been so generously donated so far has paid our 1st agency fee, our homestudy update fee, and it will pay for our dossier to get the proper stamps/clearances at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, our 2nd agency fee, and our CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) fee.  This means we have the money to get our dossier to China!  I can't tell you what a blessing it has been not to worry over how/when the money would come in.  With Asher's adoption we had to wait over 8 months just to get our dossier to China and Hannah's entire adoption will be done in 8 months or less, wow!

Here are a couple pictures of the puzzle progress!  Thank you all so much for your continued support through prayer, financial gifts, and encouragement!

Where we are

I thought I'd just share a little update of where we are in the process.  On the 5th we had a visit from our social worker.  He was here for Asher's 6 month visit and also to update our homestudy for Hannah's adoption.  The visit went really well and our homestudy should be done in a couple weeks.  When that's done, we will be sending a copy of that with some forms to the USCIS (immigration) so they can update our fingerprints and info in the system.  Once we get that approval we will take a trip to Indy to the Secretary of State's office to get their stamp and then we mail those papers to Chicago to the Chinese Consulate for their stamp.  After that, our dossier is all updated and ready to head to China!  I LOVE that we can reuse our dossier and only have to update instead of the huge paper chase again.  With Asher, it took almost 8 months from when we got preapproval from China until our dossier was on it's way back.  This time it should be half that, woohoo!

As far as funds go, we have raised $5,000 of the $20,000 we estimate that we need!  This money will pay our first and second agency fee, the fee to update our homestudy, the fees to send our documents to Chicago, and possibly most of our 3rd agency fee!  This is incredible!  With Asher's adoption, we came down to the day the payment was needed before it was there.  We are so thankful to not have that stress yet.  If you want to help us get closer to our goal of being fully funded, you can check out our puzzle fundraiser: Puzzle Fundraiser and we will most likely be doing a cookbook fundraiser as well (more info on that later).

We were also able to get a small update on Hannah recently with 3 new pictures and her current measurements so now we can take a better guess at what size clothes to get for her.  As soon as we have LOA (full approval from China to adopt her) we will send her a care package like we did for Asher so she can see pictures of our family and have some treats to share at her orphanage.

We are so excited to get back to China and to meet our daughter and we are very excited to be taking the whole family this time.  Thank you all for your continued prayers and support, we love you all!

~Carly

Unfortunate news but pressing on!

Well, we got the final confirmation today that Hannah's orphanage will not be waiving or reducing her orphanage fee.  When we began this process we had very high hopes that this fee ($5700-$5900) would be waived, so this is a big blow, but God knew it wouldn't and we have faith in His plan.

We are having a huge garage sale this Saturday to benefit Hannah's adoption and we would really appreciate prayers for blessing on that day and for good weather.  We have been so incredibly blessed by the many donations of items from family, friends, and even people we've never met before!  The kids are excited to help out and will be selling lemonade and cookies as well.  The large amount of donations is amazing but also means we have a lot of work ahead of us in getting things ready for the sale.  I'm doing my best not to be overwhelmed, so prayers for that would also be very much appreciated.

We also still have our puzzle fundraiser happening.  We've had 20 of the 300 pieces sponsored already and it would be great to have more to put together!

We have an appointment on May 5th with our social worker for Asher's 6 month update and for a homestudy update for Hannah's adoption.  After that report is complete, we will be sending it to immigration for approval there.  Those papers along with our Adoption Petition will need to be notarized here, certified in Indianapolis, and authenticated in Chicago.  Once that's done, they will be off to China and we will wait for approval!  It's crazy how much faster this adoption is going compared to Asher's but it's good because I'm impatient by nature :)

Although we've had some tough days lately with finding out Asher will never see out of his right eye and a few bits of unfortunate news about Hannah's adoption, we know God has this and we are resting in Him.

Thank you for your prayers and support as we continue to move forward!

~Carly

Puzzle Fundraiser!

We got our puzzle in the mail today and I love it!  We decided on a mommy and baby panda for our sweet Hannah Joy's puzzle and I hope she likes it.  So here's how it works:  to sponsor a piece of Hannah's puzzle, you just need to click on the Paypal Donate button at the top left of the blog, and your donation will go right into her account.  Each piece is $10, so if all 300 pieces get sponsored that is $3000 that will help bring our girl home before she ages out!  When you sponsor a piece, please let me know via facebook or by emailing me at carlyduvall1628@hotmail.com what name(s) you'd like me to write on the back of your piece(s).

Whether you sponsor one or multiple pieces of Hannah's puzzle, please know we are so very grateful because ANY amount helps bring her home!

As the puzzle progresses, I will be posting updates and pictures so keep checking back!  We'd also love it if you would share this with your family and friends.  Thank you all for your love and support!

~Carly

Surprise!

I've really been falling behind on blogging since Asher's been home, but that's a good thing because it means we are busy spending time with him and our other kiddos :)  He's doing great!  He recently had surgery that went very well and he has his first eye surgery scheduled for April 14th.  We are so excited for this eye surgery and are praying for restored vision in his right eye after the cataract is removed.  Asher continues to amaze us with all he takes on.  He has been learning so many signs and shows us each day what a strong little guy he is.  Yes, there are still behavioral struggles and we still have hard days, but God has been pouring into me and sustaining me and I'm so blessed by this provision.

Not only is Asher doing great, but we have some surprising news to share.  We are adopting again!!  Are you surprised?  We can hardly believe it ourselves!  We had no intention of going back so soon (if ever!) but once again, God had other plans.  We found our sweet girl on Reece's Rainbow and we are just so excited to add her to our family.  Hannah Joy Xin Xin (yeah, that will be her new name :) ) is 13, has Down syndrome just like her little bro, and will age out of China's adoption program when she turns 14 on December 1st of this year.  We must be in China and have signed her official adoption papers before her birthday.  This gives us less than 8 months to get all the paperwork done and approved and for us to get back over there.  

We are already off to a running start with Pre-Approval coming today and we are getting started on getting a homestudy update.  If we had been smart when we were adopting Asher we would have asked to be approved for two kids because that would have made this process super easy, but 20/20 hindsight....  It's still going to be an easier process and even though I thought I'd never want to do this paper chase again, I'm feeling so ready.

Hannah Joy has a $10,461 grant through Reece's Rainbow (how incredible is that?!) and we are praying that her orphanage will agree to waive her orphanage fee of $5700-$5900.  We've also had the inredible blessing of having another adopting family offer us a very generous donation to help get Hannah home before she ages out.  God is already paving the way!  We will be doing another puzzle fundraiser (more info on that later!) and we are hoping to do a Halo Fundraiser through Angels In Disguise (again, more on that later).  We are also considering doing another garage sale if we can get some items donated in time.  Our neighborhood is having it's association sale toward the end of April, so we would have a great chance of exposure.  We also have our Paypal Donate button back up and you can find that at the top left of the blog.  

We are so excited to share the new journey with you all and keep checking back so you don't miss the info I will be posting soon about our upcoming fundraisers!  I will leave you with a picture of our beautiful girl!  Love you all.

~Carly

Life after adoption

It has been a while since I've posted because, well, life.  I decided to post now because I'm watching a documentary on adoption called The Dark Side of Love.  A family from Wisconsin adopted 3 older kids from Russia in 2011.  This documentary has me feeling raw, I'll admit.  I see them struggling with a lot of the same issues we are, and it's painful.

Adoption is hard.  It's beautiful.  It's overwhelming.  Most days, loving Asher comes easily.  Some days it's a consious effort.  I knew in my head that the bond wouldn't be instant, but it was harder on my emotions than I thought it would be.  When you spend a year and a half working toward your son and aching for him to be home, only to have him not want much to do with you, it's hard.  Asher definitely has bonded with me now, but we still struggle with the hitting, head butting, and spitting.  I know he isn't doing it because he doesn't love me or because he wants to hurt me, but it's still hard.

What has his life been like for the last 7 and a half years to get him to this point? I have pictures, more than most people get of their adopted child, and I have reports, but that's not a life.  That doesn't tell me what he has seen or felt.  He may have had foster parents, and people who have cared for him, but he's never had the unconditional love that only a mom and dad can give.  He has a lot of scars.  Physical and emotional.  Those scars came from some kind of trauma.  Something that was lacking.  Knowing this breaks me.  My mama heart is broken when I think about him coming out of heart surgery without his mom and dad there to comfort him.  When he throws himself into my arms and squeals with joy as I pick him up, my heart rejoices and breaks at the same time.  I am so happy that he can still love and wants to be loved, but my heart aches knowing that he is just getting this at almost 8 years old.

Praise God for adoption.  Not just the adoption of children into earthly families, but our adoption by our Heavenly Father.  What a light it is in such a dark and broken world to know we don't have to be alone and unloved.  That He is there to catch our tears as they fall and to carry us when we can't go on.  Adoption and redemption are hard.  It's not the pretty picture that we've somehow painted.  Adoption comes from brokeness, but it creates a family.  Yes, it's hard, but there is so much more beauty in it than I ever imagined.  God has given us this picture of it so that we can try to understand how He brings us out of brokeness and gives us a family.  He loves us that much.

This call to adopt has been hard.  Asher's life has been hard.  God redeems us.  He makes us brave.  I love these words from the song You Make Me Brave:

I have heard You calling my name
I have heard the song of love that You sing
So I will let You draw me out beyond the shore
Into Your grace

You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way

As your Love, in wave after wave
Crashes over me
For You are for us
You are not against us
Champion of Heaven
You made a way for all to enter in

~Carly