LOA

Wow, I have been really bad at keeping up with our blog!   As you can tell by the picture above we received our Letter of Acceptance on April 16th.   Since then we have been filling out more visa paperwork for our little Hudson.   As tedious as the paperwork can get sometimes, I don't mind because I feel like I am working to get us one step closer to our little boy!

We are hoping to have travel approval by the first part of June and be able to travel in July!   From what  we have heard you can cut the humidity with a knife in China in the summer.   So I am slowly, but surely collecting dry-wicking, quick-dry clothes for us to wear in country!   Nothing's worse than to have on a cotton t-shirt that is soaked within the first 10 minutes and have to sightsee all day in wetness!   Ewwww!   We will be prepared for you, humidity!

Just received word last night that the shared list is coming out Tuesday morning (China time) Monday night (our time)!    We have been praying very specifically for a little girl in Hudson's orphanage named Grace.   We are hoping that God will allow Grace to be a part of our family as well.  It will take nothing short of a miracle for that to happen though.   You see, as the list comes out, all the agencies all over the world get on and try to find matches for their families.   Baby girls with minor special needs are "locked" right away, as there are many families looking for this type of a match.   So for our agency to be able to search the list and find Grace and lock her before ANY other agency can will be a miracle.  I have no doubt in my mind that if she is to be ours God will allow us to have her file.   We have been praying for her for months.   That fact that Hudson and her are in the same very small orphanage, growing up together as siblings, is a huge benefit for the transition being smoother for everyone!

We are definitely wanting and praying God's will in this situation.  We know that our ways are not His ways.  We know that He wants what's best for us.   We also know that as any parent, He does love to give us things we desire that don't go against His will.   So we have been praying earnestly that if it is His will we would see fit to grant us Grace's file!   I keep telling Tom that I am praying for Grace either way.....either the baby grace or the grace to get through the disappointment of not getting her file.   There will be a sense of loss if we don't get her file.   We have grown to love this baby.   We have prayed for her since last fall.   Although we had never seen her face we felt a bond with her.   Well, 3 weeks ago that all changed.   We saw a glimpse of her face in a picture of Hudson.   I cried for several days every time I looked at it, prayed for her, or thought about her.   She is just beautiful to me.

Having this longing and yearning for 2 children has given me the tiniest glimpse of how God longs and yearns for His creation to be part of His family.   The unconditional love, the undying faithfulness, oh that this process would make us more like Him!   I am definitely thankful for all the little glimpses of who He is and what He does and has done for me!   Such a beautiful picture that I can't fully grasp!

So 3 more days till the list comes out......will you join me in praying specifically that God will grant us Baby Grace's file and that He would guide our agencies hands to be able to lock her before anyone else?!

"If we were really convince that prayer changes the way God acts, and that God does bring about remarkable changes in the world in response to prayer, as Scripture repeatedly teaches that he does, then we would pray much more that we do.  If we pray little, it is probably because we do not really believe that prayer accomplishes much at all." ~ Wayne Grudem

LID!!!

That's Right.......LID!!!!

We were emailed today by our agency and they informed us that as of 1/17/13 we had been logged in!   We are making progress and that feels great!

We hope and pray that in the next couple of months we will be matched with our daughter and it won't slow down the process for Hudson.   We still are praying to travel in June or July!  It is just so exciting to think about!

BTW, isn't that just about the cutest fabric ever, underneath my LID sign?!  I just love it!  Can't wait to make something for my baby girl with that fabric!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Our Christmas wish this year is that we can bring Hudson and our baby girl home!!

Praying that 2013 is the year we complete our family!

May this year bring many blessings to your family as well.

Will the 3rd time really be a charm???!!!

So, last time we "talked" we had just mailed our dossier (for the first time) to the Consulate in Chicago. Well, since then, we have mailed it two more times after it has been rejected for minor notary wording issues.   We were thinking we would have a LID (log in date) of late November, now we are looking at a LID of at least January, and that's only if they accept our dossier this time and don't reject it for a 3rd time.

We also received word this week that they are changing their log in process so they won't be logging in any new dossiers between Dec 20th and Jan 1st.  Any dossiers received after Dec 20th will experience some delays due to them redo this process.   When I heard this, I immediately had flashbacks of our process in Thailand, that changed 2 months into our process and resulted in us being unable to adopt from that country.    Praying this doesn't happen again and that the delays are minimal.

I just can't wait for the call that we have a LID!!!!

Dossier is MAILED!!!

Mailing our Dossier!!!

So I wrote the previous post on Wednesday and on Thursday my birth certificate arrived (Only 4 days after I mailed the order form!)

So Friday morning we headed downtown to the Secretary of States office to have it authenticated and then headed straight to the post office to mail the whole dossier off!!

We are soo excited to be one step closer to our son and daughter!

Bring on the Referral!!!!!

Waiting on one little piece of paper....

Look at all those Pretty Gold Seals!!!

A couple weeks ago I went to our Secretary of State's office to get our dossier authenticated. (Gold Sealed!)   While there, I was informed that they could not accept my birth certificate because it was county issued, not state issued.   They gave me the phone number to call and order over the phone, which I did as I walked back to my car.....I'm not wasting ANY time here.  I paid the extra $25 to have it overnight couriered so that it would only take 5-10 days to get it vs. 15-30 days if they regular mailed it.  Well, Monday I still didn't have it and it had been 2 weeks, so I called them to see where it was.   They then informed me that the day after I ordered it they stopped processing requests over the phone and so I would need to reorder it via snail mail.   Frustrated that I had "lost" two weeks of time I immediately was reminded by the Holy Spirit that NONE of this is in my time (a lesson you'd think I'd have learned 3 years into this process).   I was also reminded how perfect God's timing is because His way is best.  So now I am patiently, or as patiently as this flawed human can be, waiting for my State issued birth certificate to arrive.  Once it arrives, I will drive back to the Secretary of States office to have that document authenticated and then it is off to the post office to mail the whole dossier to our agency to have translated!!

As soon as it is logged into the system, in Asia, we can immediately start looking for our daughter!  Exciting times!  I was just telling Tom, wouldn't it be awesome if we knew who both our kids were before Christmas?!   Again, not sure that is God's timing, but it sure is fun to think about the possibility!

Exciting News!!!

Ok, I just have to preface this news with that fact that I thought this day was never going to come, therefore I thought I would never be able to say these words out loud, although I said them in my head often.  What are these words, you might ask??

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!!!!!

After going on close to 3 yrs of waiting, it seems surreal to say it!!   Its even more surreal to stare at the picture of our adorable 4 yr old little man in China!   Tom and I will be writing our letter of intent to adopt him this week.   Sooo exciting!   His name will be Hudson (named after the great missionary to China - Hudson Taylor)

I will now address the other questions on your mind......

1.  what about the little girl we have been praying to adopt?   We will be waiting for the next few months for a referral for a little girl from China as well, so that we can process the two together and go one time to pick them both up!

2.  What about the other Southeast Asian country we started the process in?    We have decided that since we are adopting 2 children (Lord willing) from China we are going to stop the other process.   If the Lord sees fit down the road to allow to adopt from there, we would gladly restart that process!


How can you pray for the Lacock family?

1.  Pray that we are able to quickly get a referral for our daughter so that our son doesn't have to wait a long time for that process to go through.

2.  Pray for Hudson's care during this wait.  That God will wrap His arms around him and prepare his little heart for the HUGE change that is in his future.

3.  Pray for our daughter to be well cared for also.

4.  Pray that God will provide financially in next 8-9 months so that travel is not delayed.

5.  Pray for our existing family to use these next months wisely to strengthen our relationships with each other and prepare for the struggles that are ahead in attaching and bonding with 2 new children!

6.  Just pray.....anytime, anywhere.....it's soo powerful!!

Thank you for rejoicing with us in our amazing news.  We feel completely blessed that God would entrust us with this beautiful boy!


If I  can figure out how to make a password protected post I will post a pic.....but haven't taken the time to try to figure that out yet.    (Any suggestions welcome!)