Praise the Lord!!! We are finally out of review!!!

After waiting for over 2 months (usually takes around 2 weeks to a month) the CCAA finally posted last night that our application to adopt from China has been approved!!! I have been really stressing about this lately. It seems that I am hearing of more and more families that are being denied to adopt from here. We knew we shouldn't have any issues getting approved, but we could have easily had glitches in our paperwork which could have caused us further delays. So now our file moves to the matching room, but will probably sit on a shelf somewhere for at least another couple of years. Even though the wait will still be long, this is a huge milestone for our journey to our little girl.

More Disny Pics and 1st day of School

WOW, it's been awhile

I can't believe it's been so long since our last post. Time sure has gotten away from us this past summer. I guess I need to do a quick recap of our summer. June and July were pretty much a blur with chaotic baseball schedules. Our Disney trip was a much needed break during the middle of July. We had a blast as usual . The boys soon realized that the end of the trip also pretty much marked the end of their summer break.

We got the two older boys in school around the 2nd week of August. I can't believe I have a Jr. High er. Where does the time go?

On the adoption front, referrals are still coming VERY slowly. CCAA is still matching 2005 LID's. Hopefully they will finish Nov. 2005 with the next batch and I pray they will move into 2006 LID's by the first of the year. We are hoping to travel before 2010. Ugh, that sounds so far away. We've been keeping busy with updating our homestudy. We have a homevist this Friday with our wonderful social worker, Julia. She is absolutely wonderful! We think our paperwork (dossier) should be reviewed and approved before the end of the year, so that's exciting news for us. Right now CCAA is reviewing dossiers that were logged in during August 2006, so ours is next! Yeah us!!

We celebrated our 1 yr LID anniversary on Saturday, Sept. 8th. We attended an adoption seminar hosted by our agency. It was good for us to go and talk with other adoptive families. It keeps it real for us. There are some days that this doesn't seem like it will ever happen, but we just have to keep our faith in the Lord and know there is a reason behind this excruciating wait.

I promise we will do better at updating. Thanks for coming by!!

"If God leads you to it..."

"If God leads you to it, then He will lead you through it." I saw this on a church sign on Monday. It spoke volumes to me in regards to our adoption journey. Yesterday (Wednesday) our adoption agency posted their newest Waiting Child List. We (Tammy and I) have looked and prayed over the list several times. Our agency will begin accepting applications tomorrow morning. We are planning to submit applications for 7-8 little girls on Saturday. The families chosen to review the children's medical records will be notified on Monday. We continue to believe that God is in control of our journey. Our prayer is that each child on the list will be placed with their forever family. We ask that each of you will also pray this prayer. We also ask that God will prepare us if our daughter is on this list or not. He has placed us on this journey and we know He will see us through until the end and the beginning of our journey as a family of SIX!

A few pictures

Being a very big boy at the dentist!

Much happier at Chuck E Cheese!!

Still slow moving!!

Will we ever get through 2005 LID's? Will we ever get in the review room? Hopefully by the end of the year, we will accomplish both of these!!!

As frustrating as the wait can be for us, time really is going by so swiftly. The boys' summer activities keep us going every day. Between our 2 older boys, 2 nieces, & 2 nephews, every weeknight ( & most Saturdays) in June is booked with baseball and softball games.

In May, Hudson had to have his 2 front teeth pulled. They began decaying shortly after they came in. So now he can't eat corn on the cob for at least 3 or 4 more years. He really did pretty good for the dentist, even the dentist said so. He had the teeth out in about 3 minutes! I think Hudson was more freaked out about feeling numb, but after a trip to Chuck E .Cheese, life was good again.

We still can't decide for sure on a name, but we have plenty of time to decide! Our agency's new waiting child (Special Needs) list will come out next week. Chris and I are still open to this possibility, if it is God's will. It is always exciting to see these beautiful children find their forever families.

Our boys are looking forward to our vacation next month (Disney of course) and Hudson is asking every day if today is the day we are leaving. We leave 4 weeks from today, but I'm not counting down the days or anything. HA! It will be a nice break from our day to day chaos. Even as chaotic as our summer are, I love every minute of it and cannot wait to add even more craziness to our lives.

Mother's Day 2007

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers reading this and especially our mothers, Mary Lynn and Marlene.

God truly blessed Tammy and I with two amazing and Godly women as our mothers. We were both brought up in Christian homes and were taught to love our Lord with all our hearts. Our adoption truly began when God spoke through Tammy's mom. One day she reminded us that we had considered international adoption early in our marriage. From that point on, our hearts were in China.

Today we had the opportunity to spend time with both of our moms. We began the day worshiping God with Tammy's mom at her sister Jennifer's church. Jennifer and her husband Ralph dedicated their daughter Emerie to the Lord today. During the worship time, God spoke to me through a statement made by the worship leader. He said "Are we willing to wait on the Lord for our children?" WOW! We have always prayed with our mouths and most of the time with our hearts that we want God to bring our daughter to us in His time. However, sometimes I (Chris) want God to bring Hope or Mia to us tomorrow. So my prayer today is that I am willing to wait on the Lord for our daughter.

Two other mothers have been on my mind and heart today. I see what an amazing mother Tammy is to Morgan, Jackson, and Hudson. These three boys will one day be three Godly men because of their mother's love. They can see God's love through this woman. An amazing thing about Tammy is that she has enough love for a little girl waiting many miles away. And this love extends to another mother who is making or has made a difficult decision to give up her baby. Through this whole journey, Tammy has always had Hope's or Mia's birth mother on her heart and mind. And I know this will never change.

Please continue to remember us in your prayers as we WAIT on God to bring our daughter home.

2 DAYS??? UGH!!!

The CCAA has finished the

review of the adoption

application documents registered

with our office before

March 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished

the placement of children

for the families whose

adoption application

documents

were registered with our office

before October 26, 2005.

ACKKK!! Only 2 days of LIDs were matched this month!! This came as a complete surprise to everyone in the China adoption community. We still have 317 days of LIDs before ours!! The good news is that if they continue at this rate, our grand kids will be able to play with our daughter. HA! We've had a very difficult couple of weeks trying to digest this latest information from the CCAA. We just have to remember God will bring our daughter home when it is time, whether it is 4 months from now or 4 years.

Since it looks like we'll be nowhere near a referral for at least another couple of years, we've decided to take the kids on another Disney Cruise next year. This gives us something else to look forward to, instead of despairing every month at the ever-lengthening wait for our little girl.

We've been discussing names again. We had settled on Mia, or so we thought, but lately we've been tossing around different names. A dear friend at church suggested, Hope. We both love that name and all it implies, so for now we are thinking of calling her Hope.

We continue to pray for our daughter-to-be and her family. We also pray the each month will bring more encouraging news than the last month.

Bring Me Hope

Baby steps forward!!!

The CCAA has finished

the review of the adoption

application documents

registered with our office

before March 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished

the placement of children

for the families whose

adoption application

documents were

registered with our office

before October 24, 2005.

So what does this mean? Families whose documents were logged in with the CCAA between Oct.14 and Oct. 24, 2005 have finally been matched with their babies! Our LID (Log in date) is Sept. 8 2006! That's 318 days of LID's before ours. The CCAA has been matching an average of 2 weeks of LID's per month, lately. But Oct. and Nov. 2005 were reportedly huge months in terms of #'s of families with LID's during those months. At this rate, we anticipate the wait to extend to about 2 years from LID to referral, but pray it does not extend too much further!

Families with LID's in March of 2006 have made it through the review room. This means the CCAA has given final approval for these families to adopt from China and their dossier will now move to the matching room. April and May LID's are now in review. We are hoping to be in review by the end of 2007.

We are slowly moving forward, but at least it's progress. Every day brings us a little closer to our baby girl!!!!

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

First of all, Happy Chinese New Year! It is the year of the Golden Pig, which is considered by the Chinese culture to be a very lucky year. The year of the Golden Pig only comes every 60 years and any child born in this year is considered to be very lucky.
We realize that we still have a very long wait ahead of us before we are able to finally meet our daughter. We thank God everyday for our boys and for the family and friends which He has blessed us with! Because our lives are so involved around these loved ones, the time really is flying. I can hardly believe that it is been nearly 6 months since our paperwork was logged in with the CCAA!
Our life has been a little chaotic these past few weeks. My younger sister and her husband blessed us with a beautiful niece. Emerie Daine was born on Feb. 8. Her big brother Carson is ecstatic, as is the rest of the family. The very next day, our dear friends welcomed to their family, their 3rd child, a daughter, Sedona Rein-8 lbs 12 oz. We give praise to God for these beautiful miracles.
Yesterday evening, Morgan represented our school in the county spelling bee. He placed 3rd. We were so proud, but he was disappointed. He was just a little nervous- Ha- and misspelled a word he knew. I really think mom and dad were just as nervous as he was, but our buttons were definitely popping with pride.
Jackson had a basketball game yesterday evening as well. It really is entertaining to watch 1st graders play basketball. His team won-woo hoo! (Thanks Aunt Jackie for stepping in for us last night!)
Morgan has his first basketball game this evening, so we're off again!
Our social worker e-mailed us yesterday asking if she could come by today for a visit. She has to visit every 6 months to keep our home study current. Well, needless to say, I asked if next week would be possible instead.
I can't believe next week, February will be gone. Another month of waiting under our belts. We continue to ask for your prayers for our family and for our hopefully soon-to-be born daughter in China

About us

We are Chris and Tammy Stubblefield. We've been married 12 1/2 years and are the parents to 3 wonderful sons, Morgan (11), Jackson (7), and Hudson (2). Early in our marriage, God planted a seed in our hearts to pursue adoption ,at some point ,to build our family. After 3 very difficult pregnancies plus the everyday chaos of raising 3 boys, that seed got buried and nearly forgotten. We both knew our family felt incomplete, but were unwilling to endure the stress of another pregnancy. One afternoon in Feb. of 2005, God whispered a gentle reminder to us both. It was like a light bulb moment. We both suddenly remembered our original plans. We attended our first informational meeting at our now adoption agency in April 2005 and we both knew we were in for the long haul and knew we were heading to China!
In January of 2006, we were accepted by our agency and our paperchase began. Our dossier left for China on August 4 2006. We were logged in (LID) to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs on Sept. 8 2006, thus securing our place in a very long line. We are anticipating at least another 18 months of waiting, (but probably longer). Although the growing wait is disheartening, we know that God's timing is perfect and the months of waiting will melt away when we are finally able to hold our daughter.
Thanks for joining us on our adoption journey.

Halloween at Disney