GETTING CLOSER TO PA!!!!

It's been awhile since my last posting mainly because I've been frantically paperchasing and then I forgot my own username and password to get back here!
Here's the latest: after my last post, we were 13 days into the wait for PA. What is PA, you ask? This is Preliminary Approval. Once we were "matched" with our little Judi, we had to submit 4 things, a summary of basic information about our family, a letter stating how we would care for Judi and what medical/educational resources we would utilize, an application, and of course, a small preliminary fee. All these documents are sent to China to the CCAA, the China Center of Adoption Affairs, who reviews it and hopefully, issues the "PA".
In the meantime, I've been getting together our dossier; this is the BIG file that goes to China after we get PA. It includes such things as our homestudy, financial info, police records, employer letters, etc. I'll explain more about that for my family and friends as we go along. The only glitch in the whole thing so far has been the reaction from a few people, which has been way different from the reaction to our first adoption, I think because we chose Special Needs this time. A couple of our acquaintances are pretty negative about it, so I am careful about sharing adoption news with them. Thankfully, there are still lots of people I can share my happiness and excitement with. It's hard for me to understand how opening your heart and home to an orphan can ever be viewed as negative. I just ask God for His strength and know that this is His plan for our life.
We have had really great news this month. All we knew about Judi was what her medical file from the adoption agency contained. We had no more information after Sept. 2007. We learned about a lady that knew another lady in China who could "ferret" out more information for us. We heard from her this week and got GREAT NEWS! Judi is apparently showing no signs of any physical or mental delays (YEAH!), is potty-trained (double YEAH!), likes dolls and toy cars (James is excited about this as he has about 200 hot wheels!), likes candy (dental visit in the cards!), and is somewhat afraid of strangers (Gotcha Day should be veeery interesting!). She's 36.6 inches tall, and weighs about 28 lbs. However, we are keeping in mind that any info coming out of China is not necessarily 100% ironclad, so we're going to go to get her with completely open minds and expecting anything..
Jazzy is so excited about Judi! She asks every day when we will go get her! Part of me wishes we wouldn't have said anything until we had official PA, but her (Jazzy's) adoption decision was made as a family and we followed suit with Judi's. We would never have pursued adopting again if the whole family hadn't been on board; Jessica and James are such open-hearted kids; they already refer to Judi as "my new sister", the same way they did with Jazmin. And I'm sorry to brag, but I have to say that Jazmin herself is one incredible kid! Every day I thank God countless times for allowing me to be her mother; she truly is a gift and we can't imagine life without her.
We have found out that Judi is in a foster family also, complete with an older (foster) sister. Though this will be hard on her to leave them, we hope to be able to stay in contact with them and send them pictures throughout the years. With Jazzy traveling to China with us, we're hoping her presence will ease Judi's grief at saying goodbye to her foster family.
Day 44 in the wait for PA! Arrrgh! Two people adopting from our agency list got their PA early this week and we're about 6 days behind them, so keep your fingers crossed for next week!
For my family and friends: I can't post pictures of Judi until I have PA, so if you want to see her, go to www.adoptionhouse.org, click on "International" on the left side of the screen. Then click "China Special Needs", then "Available Children". Judi is almost at the bottom of the list under the name "Ruby".
Til next time!