YAY!! It finally happened - we have our I-800 approval. What does this mean? Well, I'm not exactly sure :). I just know that it's good! We now have to wait approximately 1 week to receive a letter from the NVC - and then everything gets returned to China and we wait for our travel date!!
I'll try to get some pictures of Olivia's nursery up by the end of the week. My sister-in-law, her mom, and 3 of neices and nephews came up 2 weekends ago and we all worked on the nursery. Everyone got to do something for Olivia - it was awesome!! They brought like a million things for Olivia's room and did all the decorating. Leslie painted the most precious little board and it took her until like 4am! Gigi painted the most precious letters and had to take a lot of stuff home to keep painting.
Thank you Leslie and GiGi for EVERYTHING!!! Her room would have looked very sad if you both had not done all you did! I love you both SO much and couldn't imagine my life or Olivia's without you in it! She is so lucky to have you both in her life!!! We love you!!!
Danny and Julie
Julie, I love following your updates on the blog! I am so glad you are sharing this wonderful experience with everyone. I can't wait to see pictures of her room. Sounds like everything is falling into place! Olivia and Noah will be in the same grade, it's hard to believe. We will have to have some play dates!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Julie,
ReplyDeleteI am Matt Wingenter's wife Angela.
Congratulations on your sweet little Olivia, she is just so precious!
Matt told me that you wanted some information about the finding adds.
I don't know if you even know about them, but whenever a baby is found, the local government places a picture and finding information in the town's newspaper. They have to do this, and then wait six months to see if anyone claims the child. Then they are considered abandoned, and can be placed for adoption.
Anyway, most people get a copy of the finding add with their adoption papers while in China, but they are just a small photo copy on a piece of paper.
There is a man who has adopted two children from China, and he has contacts there, I'm not sure when he started doing this, but he finds the finding add for you, makes an enlarged copy I think for $35.
Some times he can actually get the original paper, and have the add translated too.
Before we traveled I sent him an email to see if he could find Tessa's add. He did fairly quickly, and he also had the actual paper too.
I believe in all, for the enlarged photo, a negative of the photo, the original section of the paper with the finding adds, and the translation all was about $70-75.
It seems high, but I'm really glad I got it.
I know this is long, so I won't go on here, but email me at a_wingenter@yahoo.com, and I'll tell you more about it.