His First Outfit

So I was out shopping today to get some stocking stuffers at Target. Since we are now getting a boy and not a girl, this means that I do not have any clothes for him. Not knowing if we are going to have any more kids after him, and not knowing if we do, if we'll have another boy, I don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes. He's a boy. So doesn't that mean his clothes won't last to be hand me downs anyways, right? At Target I was on a search for deep discounted clearances. I didn't want anything ugly though. I was hoping to get his first Michigan outfit. But no luck. Those were not on sale. Neither were the Pistons. Neither were the Red Wings. ONLY the Lions outfits were on sale. Go figure. So his first outfit is a Lions sweatsuit.

Detroit Orphanage

I was surprised to learn that Detroit has a modern day 'orphanage' Christ Child House. Two weeks ago the Detroit News did a special report on it. If you missed it, you can still find it on-line. They are in need of everything from volunteer hours to clothing for the boys. Michigan has 18,000 children in the foster care system. About 400 'age out' (turn 18) on a yearly basis. I could not even imagine being on my own at 18 years old. I was living at home getting ready for college and not having to worry about food or shelter.

Last night I attended a meeting with a group from our church that have started an organization Hope For Every Orphan. They hope to bring awareness and support to the orphans of the world, beginning with the foster children in our area. Oakland County, the county that we live in, is one of the wealthiest areas of the country but yet we have the greatest need for foster homes. Children in Macomb County neighboring us are having to go to foster homes hours north of us because there are not enough homes in this area for the children. With our pending adoption, I am looking forward to supporting this ministry. It feels like a good fit for our family right now.

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Donation Increase Official

We received an email from our adoption agency today. The rumors that have been floating around the last few months are now true. Effective January 1, 2009, the orphanage 'donation' will increase to $5,000. We knew it was likely to happen but we were still hoping it wouldn't go into effect until after we adopted. I understand that it is going to a very worthy cause, but still, it's another $2,000 we weren't originally anticipating. We have been toying with the idea of doing an adoption fundraiser and now we just might need to do that in addition to applying for a few grants.

Pre-Approval (PA)

Email just in:

"Congratulations we received your Pre-Approval (PA) today! The PA is the CCAA's initial approval and agreement to complete the review of your dossier for "baby boy". The next step will be your Letter Seeking Confirmation or LSC. Currently we have seen this processed in 30-60 days." Let's pray for that to be on the speedy end because Chinese New Year is coming up quickly, in which the Chinese government closes down for that entire 2 weeks.

Chip - In

All of the Questions

November is National Adoption Awareness Month

It's also the month that we felt led to pursue a Special Needs (SN) adoption.

Since feeling called to pursue adoption almost 2 years ago, we have been asked many questions. Asked by well meaning family and friends. As I sit here and reflect on this journey that we have been on for the past 2 years, many of these questions come to mind. I've often been tempted to answer in hast and anger but with God's guidance, I've often been able to use these questions as an opportunity to educate others on God's call to care for the orphans of the world.

Here are the most common questions with my responses in parenthesis:

You already have 3 daughters, why would you want more? (Children are a blessing from the Lord!)

Are you doing this so you can have a boy? (Actually, no. I wanted another girl to begin with. Pete just wanted another child (and didn't want to go through another pregnancy with me : ) This was the child that God had planned for us - just as He had planned our 3 girls.

Will you homeschool him? (Why wouldn't I if that is what God continues to lead me to do.)

Can’t you have more of your own? (This child will be my own, just from a different womb.)

4 kids in NYC? Are you nuts? (Maybe. Maybe we won't move after-all. Maybe we'll move someone cheaper than Manhattan. I'm only worrying about today and not tomorrow)

There are so many babies in the US that need homes. Why are you adopting internationally? (This is God's show, not ours.)

I heard of a family whose adopted kid {had attachment issues, was mentally challenged, etc.}. (Biological kids also sometimes have attachment issues, are mentally challenged, etc. but we still love them anyways.)

Why are you adopting a special needs kid? There are plenty of healthy ones available. (Every child needs a family and we have the means to care for this child. Any one of our daughters could have been born with the same issue. I wouldn't have asked God to take them away from me because of that)

Aren’t you worried about a child of a different race "fitting in" with your family, church, community? (God has chosen this child for us; this country for us. I know He has the details worked out already. Besides, we live in a very diverse city already)

How much did he cost you? (God took care of the finances through grants, help from our church and family & promotions.)

It definitely would have been easier to not follow God's prompting. But then again, we'd have been in obvious disobedience, and that probably would not have been easier after all. There has a been a lot of paperwork and a lot of money spent to bring this child home to us but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything!

Why Should We Care About Orphans?

Marriage Memo from my INBOX today:

By Dave Boehi

In an age of instant communication, of hyper entertainment, of information explosion and saturation … how many of us know that there are now more than 130 million children orphaned across the globe?

That every 14 seconds an AIDS death causes another child to become an orphan?

That more than 500,000 children are in the foster care system in America?

FamilyLife is joining forces again this year with Focus on the Family, Shaohannah’s Hope, and many other orphan ministries for the “Cry of the Orphan” campaign. This reflects a growing emphasis at FamilyLife in calling attention to the plight of orphans around the world and in challenging married couples to consider adopting children or getting involved in other ways to help.

Why should we care about orphans? Why should we get involved?

Because orphans matter to God.

If you spend much time studying God and His priorities and passions—what He likes and dislikes, what pleases Him and what angers Him—you will learn about God’s priorities. As C. Thomas Davis writes in his book, Fields of the Fatherless, "If you searched the Bible from front to back, you'd find many issues close to God's heart. But you'd also notice three groups of people coming up again and again. They appear so many times, in fact, you have to conclude that God mentions them purposely to make sure they are at the top of our priority list."

Who are these three groups of people? They are orphans, widows, and aliens (or strangers). They are the fatherless, the helpless.

God’s compassion for the helpless

Scores of passages throughout the Bible reveal that God has a special place in His heart for the helpless in our society. Here are just a few of these Scriptures:

"For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:17-18).

The Lord protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow … (Psalm 146:9).

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan" (Exodus 22:21-22).

Why does God show such special concern for these groups of people? Think of what the orphan, the widow, and the alien have in common.

An alien or stranger is isolated from his friends and family in an unfamiliar town or country; he could easily be robbed, defrauded, or oppressed. (If you've ever traveled overseas in a country where you cannot speak the native language, you know what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange land, and how grateful you feel when someone helps you.)

Likewise, a widow has lost the provision and protection of her husband. And an orphan (especially a young child) may be the most helpless of all. He has no father or mother to protect him.

God's concern for the orphan is reflected in our relationship with Him

Any follower of Christ should be able to identify with the orphan, though many have not realized this. We are naturally selfish, prideful, and sinful—estranged from God. We rebel against God, and choose to go our own way. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

In other words, we were separated from the love of God the Father just as an orphan is unable to enjoy the love of an earthly father. But God reached down and made it possible, through the death of Jesus Christ for our sins, for us to become His children. 1 John 3:1 tells us, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God …"

That's why the Scriptures on several occasions compare our salvation to the act of adoption. Ephesians 1:3-5 says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.

A special part of God’s plan includes caring for the orphan

Understanding how God has adopted us as His children helps us understand in a personal way why He is so concerned about the orphan … and why the Bible contains so many commands for us to be involved.

The Scriptures are clear that God gives the family of God the responsibility to care for the orphan's needs. Psalm 82:3-4, for example, says, "Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked."

The purpose of the Cry of the Orphan campaign is to help inform the Christian community with the news that God has a plan for orphans and educate them on ways to get involved. Both FamilyLife Today and Focus on the Family radio broadcasts are devoting this week (November 17-21) to the subject of adoption and orphans.

And if you are interested in learning more about how you can be involved, FamilyLife’s website offers a host of resources and testimonies about adoption and orphan care at our adoption page and also at the homepage for our orphans ministry, Hope for Orphans. You also could check out some of these highlights from the FamilyLife Today broadcast archive:

• “A Biblical Mandate”: Rick Warren, best-selling author and pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California, talks about why Christians should be concerned about orphans, and then describes how he and his wife, Kay, were called to speak up for orphans in Africa.

• “The Adoption Option”: On day one and day two of this series, couples describe their adoption experiences. The final day features Dennis Rainey, pastor John Piper and recording artist Danny Oertli talking about the joys and challenges of adoption.
  
  
• “Adoption—God’s Prescription for a Happy Home”: Larry and Joy Crain had four children, but decided to expand their family by adopting twin girls from the Ukraine. (Day one: “Fulfilling a Heart’s Desire” … Day two: “Seeing Double” … Day three: “Home at Last”.)"

Letter of Intent Submitted

Two years ago, On November 14, 2006, I mailed our application to GWCA adoption. We thought then that in August of this year, 2008, we would travel to get our daughter. How ironic that just one year ago, we thought we were at least another 2 years ago. Honestly, as recently as last month, we still thought we were at least another 2 years away from getting our daughter. Now, we may be traveling within 5 months to get our SON.

Pete just emailed off our Letter of Intent (LOI) and Parent Information sheet. That needed to be submitted by 9 pm today. The LOI basically says that we wish to adopt this particular little boy whose file we've had for a whole 24 hours. Once that is accepted, then his file is 'locked' so no one else can attempt to adopt him while we are being reviewed by China. Our agency has every reason to believe that we will be approved to adopt him. We still have to snail mail the originals as well. We also had to submit the LOI agreement and updated photos by 9 pm tomorrow but we just took care of that today at the same time. But the wait continues.

After all of that, there are still more steps, but we just have to wait for those. More waiting. One would think that I'd be an expert at this waiting stuff by now. But I'm not. Once our agency submits Letter of Intent (which will hopefully be tomorrow - their China office has to translate it), we wait for what is called the Pre - Approval (PA). This should come within 2-3 weeks. This is a statement from the CCAA that they reviewed our LOI and accept it, and agree to move our dossier (which is currently in the Review Room waiting to be reviewed) to the Waiting Child track on behalf of him.

The Waiting Child department will then do a review of our dossier. Once they give the final ok, they issue the Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC). This is the “official” referral of him to us. That should come around February sometime. At this point is where it is set in stone that he is ours! It could take anywhere from 8-12 weeks to receive this document and then it is then another 4-8 weeks for travel (so, something to financially plan for!). If we need to slow the process at any point to get things in order, we do have the option to do so in some areas but that is currently NOT in our plan. We believe this is God's will for us and trust that he will get the remainder of the finances in order since this happened about 2 years sooner that we most recently thought it would be. It does give us a few months though to apply for a few grants. LOTS more prayers for that!

This all moved so quickly today thanks to my hubby. He really took the reins on this one and completed everything and emailed it over. I would have had to take the entire day off of school (as it was the girls only did about 2/3 of their work - the PLUS side to homeschooling : ) to get everything ready but he squeezed it in his work day somehow.

We do have pictures of him but we are not allowed to post them anywhere publicly until he is 'officially' ours. It is possible that someone else is doing the exact same thing as us right now for this darling little boy. We hope not but it is possible.

Oh - and a medical update! It appears that he only has Epi-retinal membrane (ERM)

Epi-retinal membrane (ERM) or macular pucker is a cellophane-like membrane that forms over the macula. It is typically a slow-progressing problem that affects the central vision by causing blur and distortion. As it progresses, the traction of the membrane on the macula may cause swelling.

This condition only has to be monitored until it becomes an issue. At which point, he will likely need surgery to correct his vision. Currently, he has blurry vision. This is only in his left eye. His right eye is normal. We found this out AFTER we had decided this morning that we were proceeding regardless of what this last update would state. God's always seems to know more than us : )

This Could Be It

A boy - yes you read that correctly - a almost 13 month old boy. He has possible retinoblastoma in the left eye. That is cancer. With a 95% cure rate in the US. But it is not a confirmed diagnosis. It could be small tumor or it could not be. Otherwise, he is perfectly healthy and on target developmentally. We have his file. And 3 pictures too. Unfortunately I can not share them yet due to confidentiality issues until we have officially been approved by the CCAA for adoption. Right now we have his file and have to have it reviewed by a physician here to get as much information as we possibly can from his medical reports. Which do not contain much information anyway. So, we wait and pray, for God' perfect timing on this one. A boy. Yes what a surprise for us.

It's Official

First though, we are FINALLY in the REVIEW ROOM. This means that Chinese Officials are reviewing our dossier for completeness and eligibility. We are confident, largely in part because of our agency, that we should move through this process easily. This is the room that China will ask any questions of us that they may have based on our all our paperwork that we submitted. Our agency has a reputation for being very thorough. I have no doubts that this phase will pass quickly.

Now, it's official that we are considering a special needs (SN) baby. On Friday Pete completed the application for consideration of a SN baby. One of the questions on the applications, asks us to check off which special needs we would consider. It saddens me to think that some things that are easily corrected with a surgery here make a baby undesirable there. We know we can't handle some majors issues like downs syndrome, just being honest, but something like a cleft lip, we could. Our application will remain active with GWCA for 6 months. Based on the information that we submitted, the agency will try to match us up with a SN baby on the 'shared agency' list. We also now have access to our 'agency specific' list where we can view some more detailed information about babies on their list.

Two years ago, Pete was not ready for this. But God has prepared his heart and now he is open to it. Our home study agency has approved us for a SN baby as well so that is one less update we will have to do if we are matched.

Updates

I can't believe we have now been in this process for 2 years this October.

The last group of referrals that came through experienced a 32 months wait.

We could move into the Review Room (that is the second of three rooms where they review our dossier for completeness and ask for verification on anything in our file) as early as the end of this year. Currently those with a LID of February 2007 are in there. We are LID April 2007.

As for some good news, we just received our renewal I-171H for our adoption (you might remember that we started this back in June : ) Everything went well with our updated home study (considering we are currently between homes - our Social Worker ROCKS!) So we are good to get baby K for another 18 months. If we don't travel before then, we have A LOT more hoops to jump through. Now we are praying about about the special needs adoption program. We are trying to postpone it until we move but if we don't move this month, then we will seriously be looking at the list of children.

It hasn't bothered me often, the wait that is, until recently. Yesterday we were at the Cider Mill and it hit me hard. Maybe it is because we saw numerous adopted children (it's obvious they are adopted when both parents are Caucasian and the children are Asian) and numerous other babies. I just know that if we could easily have a child now, I'd get pregnant in a minute. I am starting to really long to have our baby in our arms...

Larry King Live

Tonight on Larry King Live on CNN, Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman and his family will appear to discuss the accidental death of their youngest daughter Maria Sue.

Here is a link to a home video of Maria Sue:

Home video

Fathering of the Fatherless

Glorifying the Father of the Fatherless

via Desiring God Blog on 7/23/08

(Author: Jason Kovacs)

Jason Kovacs is the Director of Ministry Development for The ABBA Fund. He also blogs about orphan care and adoption and is on the steering committee for the Together for Adoption Conference.

* * *

Like every other dad, the day I became a father for the first time was unforgettable. My wife and I were a happy young couple waiting to adopt our first child. Visions of a beautiful baby filled our minds.

We weren't sure if we would be matched with a birthmother a few months prior to the due-date or if we would get a phone call that a baby had been born and the brave young mother was ready to immediately place her child for adoption.

Months went by and we finally got a phone call, but it wasn't for a baby.

God had a two-year old boy and an eight-month old girl for us. The social worker asked if we were interested and we said "Yes!" and drove down to Florida to meet our children.

At the adoption agency, the first person I met was my son toddling around the corner. He walked up to me and grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. He wanted out of that place!

What I believe he wanted even more than that was a daddy.

That is the case today with millions of children around the world. UNICEF estimates that there are over 132 million orphans in the world today living without a permanent family. In the United States alone, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says, there are over 129,000 children waiting for a daddy and mommy. There are also many mothers with unexpected pregnancies who want to choose adoption instead of abortion.

Many of the children overseas must fight all by themselves for their very lives. Others are cared for in orphanages. The orphaned children in America will fight for their futures as well: roughly 2% will receive a university degree and 84% will have their own children within a few years of aging out of the foster-care system (source).

With all these parentless children, it is no side note that God is a "Father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5). He has made adoption the apex of the Gospel. His spiritual enemies are now his very sons and daughters through the Cross.

And God calls us, his adopted family, to be a part of his care for the fatherless. At the core of God's nature is a Father's heart that we are to reflect. Scripture is clear that practical care for orphans is fundamental to the mission of the church.

In Psalm 10:18 we are commanded to "do justice to the fatherless." And Isaiah tells us to "Defend the cause of the fatherless" (1:17). James writes, "religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans…in their affliction" (1:27).

Surely this means not only caring temporarily for the needs of orphans, but also permanently caring for them through adoption.

We have an incredible opportunity in adoption to live out God's compassion and so eternally change the life of a child.

A year after we adopted, my wife gave birth to our third child, a beautiful baby girl. The wonder and beauty of becoming a parent through birth and adoption are incomparable and yet each is just as sweet and amazing and wonderful.

I encourage any of you who are praying about growing your family to consider adoption as a way of magnifying the "Father of the fatherless."

And for those of you who aren't called to adopt there many other ways to care for orphans such as foster-care, financially supporting those who are adopting, visiting orphanages, sponsoring a child, and praying.

The question will never be whether you should care for orphans. The question is how you will care for them and in doing so reflect the compassion of God for the least of these.

* * *

If you are interested in knowing more about adoption and orphan care please visit Cry of the Orphan.

If you would like information on how you can financially help bring children into Christian homes or start an adoption fund at your church, please visit The ABBA Fund.

For information on the connection between our adoption by God and our adoption of children please visit Together for Adoption. We will be hosting our first conference on adoption this November.

Increased Fees

CCAA has been implementing steps to speed up the adoption process. I am beginning to wonder if one of those steps is the reason behind the increased fees collected by the Chinese Government. The fees have gone up drastically since we started this process. If we don't pay the fees, our baby K doesn't join our family. I wonder if this step has caused some parents to drop out of the program. Chinese adoptions has historically been one of the least expensive international countries to adopt from. I would hope that money is not the only reason that people choose to adopt from China but let's face it, money does have something to do with it.

I was reviewing the latest Places Everyone email from our agency. It is a monthly email update on where our dossier stands in the process. I couldn't help but
notice that a CONSIDERABLE amount of cash was needed for the trip to China....and this has me very concerned.

When we first signed up for the adoption, we were given a brochure that said that there would be an orphanage donation of $3,000, plus $1,200 or so for legal fees.

What I read today scared me .... It said $5,000 for Chinese Legal Fees, $2,000 for Province Legal Fees and $3,000 for an Orphanage Donation. Additionally, they suggest $1,500 - $2,000 per two adults in spending cash for meals. We will have an additional adult and 3 children with us so I'd guess that we need to double that.

I hate to bring money into the equation when we are talking about our forever family, but gosh, that sure is a HUGE increase! I think I need to re-consider doing a fundraiser. That is almost double what we had been originally told.

CCAA's Efforts

We have been told now for a few months that CCAA is implementing steps to speed up the adoption process. Many people think that what they are doing is waiting for the Olympics to be over. I believe this but think there is more to it than just that. Our referral update came today. This is what our agency had to say:

"The families from our last referral group who received their referral on May 2, 2008, experienced a 28 month referral timeframe. The CCAA continues to take steps to address the growing referral timeframe. These efforts include: recruiting more orphanages to participate in international adoption; educating orphanage officials on how to fill out the necessary paperwork for a child to be considered paper ready for international adoption in a more timely manner; starting to implement a computer based program, so that soon, everything will be done electronically; and providing impoverish orphanages with funds through the Blue Sky Plan. "

These are tangible steps that I do believe will help speed things up. I am still praying that we will be matched with our forever daughter in 2009. The girls will turn 5, 7, & 9 next year. I think that will be a good age for them all to make a cross continent trip, don't you : )

Referral Update

Once a month we get an email update from our adoption agency, informing us of the latest referrals that came in for that month. This is one way in which the agency can communicate with us during our LONG wait. It also lets us know how fast (in reality, how slow) we are moving through the wait.

I just received my May 2008 email update on the April 2008 referrals processed. For the entire month of April 2008, China was able to complete matching for an entire THREE days worth of referrals from January 2006! Lately they have been able to get through at least one full week. I think Kenadie will be in college by the time we get our baby. Seriously.

Homestudy Update

We met with our Social Worker from Adoption Advocates today to get a homestudy update done so we can apply for a new I-171H that expires in August but with fingerprints that expire in two weeks in May. I just have to say Wendy ROCKS! She is so helpful and genuine. She is a blessing from God for sure. She really does care about the babies that find their forever families here but she also cares about those families waiting for their child. The meeting took just under an hour and we should have our homestudy update next week sometime.

Since we had this appointment today and I've been busy the past week trying to get our updated paperwork ready for her, the girls had the adoption on their minds again. Most days they don't ask about it, especially with NYC on their minds. But this past week-end while we were driving, Kaeterina asked me if we would still live in NYC when we traveled to get Baby K. I told her that I honestly didn't know. I explained to her how we are following God's plan for us as best we can and that means I don't know what next year will be like. She was OK with that answer. So was I. That's a big step for me. I like to have the next 5 - 10 years planned out - in general terms anyways. I've given that up to God now. Only He knows.

I-600A About to Expire!

I'm typically more up on things like this but in my defense, we kind of have a lot going on right now!

I just realized yesterday that our fingerprints expire 5/7/08 (only 1 month away) and our I-600A expires at the beginning of August. That is required in order to bring Baby K home. I guess in the past when you were adopting internationally, the adoption was finalized, in most cases anyways, before these documents expired. The last group of referrals that come through experienced a 26 month wait. Our could easily turn in 36 months. We pray that it won't for many reasons but if it does, that means we will have to file for an extension AGAIN! And it won't be free.

If we file for an extension before our current one expires, then 1. It's free (about at $750 savings) and 2. We are "grandfathered" in and don't fall under the Hague Convention Treaty laws (I don't even know what that specifically would mean for us but I would imagine it means more paperwork which I'd LOVE to avoid).

So silly me thinks that just means filing a new form. Then I start to think about it and remember that it will require a homestudy update. Then I think about it some more and remember that the homestudy required a lot of papers too! UGH! I guess it'll be a distraction from our pending move (but I thought the pending move was distracting me from fretting over our continued wait for Baby K?!?)

Thank the Lord that our Homestudy Social Work is a GEM! Honest to God she is the BEST! She is very quick and thorough and just an all around wonderful person. So I emailed her tonight and within 30 minutes I have two emails back from her with directions on what we need to do step by step and an attachment with all of the necessary forms that need to be completed.

Well, guess I'll be busy this upcoming week. It's a good thing the girls have a break from many of their normal activities due to the Easter holiday.

Possible Names

Well I don't post here much because there is nothing happening. LOTS of rumors around. I read the Rumor Queen also know as China Adopt Talk None of the rumors have any basis - lots of speculation. But I still read it to feel connected. Our referral is so FAR off. We've only been waiting 8 months. The last batch of referrals (China only sends referrals once per month) experienced a 25 month wait. Still growing. Some agencies say people are dropping out of the program like crazy because they can't deal with the wait. China says, Just wait until 2009 and things will have improved! 2009! That's a year away! I know it's all in God's Timing. This year would not be a good year after-all for us to travel for her.

Most days I don't even think about it. I know Baby K will be matched to us when it's time. But for some reason, today she has been on my mind a LOT. Maybe it is because someone asked Pete yesterday if I could get pregnant. Well, with God's intervention, I could. But in all likelihood, I shouldn't be able to. Now that made me sad. I was never sure I was done having babies but I was sure I didn't want to be pregnant again : )

Pete and I decided on a name before we even sent in our application to Great Wall. It just came to me (I know it was God talking to me) one day. I was pulling into the drive through of a McDonald's when it was put into my head. I called Pete immediately and said I have her name and it's "baby K" and he said, Yes that is it. I was being hung up on a name before I would send in the application to GWCA. Weird I know but it is how things were working for me. It was hard coming up with yet another girl name that started with K that we both like. We tried finding a Chinese name but there were like 3 to choose from! I won't tell anyone her name until after it's official. I don't know why either. It was like that for the other 3 girls and just seems to be the way it will be her. So we call her Baby K. We know her name will start with K because the other girls do.

So as a distraction, we talked about names for her just for fun. Pete suggested Ki'an. I think that is actually a pretty name. But I still like our first one. I think I 'm stuck on it. I'll still consider others but no other ones sound right. Now when we see her, we could totally change our minds like we did with K#1 but who knows. I think God named her and it will stick. She is probably not even born yet - possibly not even conceived yet!