In response to your words...

I have to say that we are so touched by the many beautiful posts you leave on our blog and send to us in emails. The reason we write this post is that reading your words of kindness and support show us how many people Aislin's life has touched. These words she will be able to read throughout her life, I have saved every comment and every email and they will become a part of her scrap book that I am going to put together and I know she will treasure every word just as we have. They show the love and support from all of you. I know you may never know how significant your words could be in helping Aislin uderstand how truly loved she is and how it's not just her Mommy and Daddy who thought of her everyday and waited so anxiously for her, but also all of you.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
Happy New Year!

Ah the excitement

We washed all of Aislin's clothes tonight, cleaned out her room and started getting more organized. We sat there and folded her little jammies and reflected at how far we've come and how wonderful this journey has been. Our lives are about to change drastically in about two weeks, and though I'm sure I don't have a complete grasp on just how drastically life will change I welcome it, as does John (he has a better idea of what's to come though already having gone through this)....
We are so excited about everything Aislin will bring to our lives.
We are pretty lucky.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Merry Christmas friends and family. We had a wonderful Christmas, alot of carolling and a lot of turkey! John and I were both spoiled rotten by Santa and Mom and Dad. It was so nice to go home to Cape Breton for a little (alot) of much needed pampering. This weekend is New Year's Eve and Jenny and Duane and the kids are coming up for what has come to be one of my favorite new holiday traditions. They've been able to make it here to share New Year's with us for the past two years, we have a fondue and wine and laugh a ton! I'll be sure to post some pictures of the festivites early next week...so until then we genuinely hope you all had a wonderful Christmas....now....let's get to the NEW YEAR and bring Aislin home!

New Picture of Aislin

This picture was taken only 3 days ago. She seems to being doing well, has only gained 1.1 lbs since her referral and still as beautiful as ever. Only a few more weeks until we hold her in our arms.

28 days

Only 28 more days until we leave for China, we are getting so anxious to see our little china doll....less than a month, we can finally say it's next month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AISLIN!

It's December 10th in China and our little Aislin is 1 year old! We wish we could be with her. We are going to celebrate by going for Chinese Food with our close friends Tara, Mike, Ethan and Emma. We love you baby girl, Happy Birthday!

Cool Slideshows

BUMMER!

Our trip has been delayed by 1 week, so we won't be going until January 12th. We are really bummed about it, but not much we can do. Apparently there are some regulations as to how many adoptions can happen in a day, and they are booked up (to put it in simple terms) during the time we were planned to go, so we will go a week later. Everything happens for a reason....

Our first family ornament!

Cool Slideshows

Waiting again but happily and more peaceful this time...

Some days it seems to be flying by and others seem dreadfully long (I'm using my Simon Cowell accent there!). We are waiting for news of how Aislin is doing. It's getting close to her birthday, only 18 days until she is 1 year old...hope she gets her parcel for her birthday. I've been reading the websites and it seems the people from the US who got their referral a few days ahead of us, are travelling in mid December, I'm not sure why we aren't other than there are more delays with our paperwork since we received it later. It would be kind of neat to spend Christmas in China! Oh well, it will only be 10 days after that and we are on our way! I finish up work on the 29th of December. It's also nice that now adoptive parents qualify for parental leave, so I will hopefully be home with Aislin at least until September or later until something permanent opens up at work. My brain is Mommy mode now, panicking about all the things I don't know yet about being a Mom, I'm sure some of it will come as I go along. Anyway, we expect an update in the next week or two! Maybe they'll send along another picture!

TRAVEL DETAILS

As I prepared Ailsin's care package to send to her, In My Daughter's Eyes by Martina McBride came on the radio, it was the perfect song, seemed meant to be. In her package we included a teddy bear, a blanket, a disposable camera (hoping care givers will take some pictures) a photo album with pictures of us, Angie & Kyle, my Mom and Dad and our two dogs and cat. We also included a bunch of chocolates for the caregivers. We are hoping maybe she'll get it for her birthday on December 10th.

Our tentative date of travel is January 5th,we are so excited. There seems to be so much to do between now and then! I'm so nervous and excited all at the same time. So much is happening all at once it seems, we waited so long and now BAM!

In about 3 weeks or so we should hear an update on Aislin's measurments, see how much she's grown! Can't wait to see her!!!

INTRODUCING MISS AISLIN!!!!

Here is our beautiful girl!!!
She is about 8kgs, 69cm long
Sleeps from 9:30 to 6:30am
Is a deep sleeper
Laughs out loud
Distinguishes between acquaintances and strangers
Is a quiet baby who loves music and playing with her toys!!!

I can't sleep

Tomorrow we see Aislin's face for the first time, I can't sleep...I am sick to my stomach..my nerves are really getting the best of me. I thought that if maybe I posted I'd be able to relax a bit and get some sleep. This road has been a tough one, though we've been actually been logged in China for 14 months, which might not seem that long in the whole scheme of things but I've been waiting my whole life to see my daughter's face. I've always wanted to be a wife and a mother, I am a traditional person in that sense. Five and a half years ago I met John, he made life different for me, for the first time in my adult life I could really be myself..John is the perfect man to be my husband, my first dream come true...and he is helping make my other dream come true. But this is not a journey we make alone. I feel it, I hear it in the voices of our families and close friends. They feel this too. My grandmother told me the other day as she teared up, "oh Tara, we've waited so long for this"...and she's right, she has been waiting just like we have. It's finally going to happen, I am going to be a Mommy, and now that all of my dreams are coming true, the rest is just the icing on the top of the cake. I'm overwhelmed with love for a little girl I don't even know yet, and soon she'll be in my arms and I can show her everyday how truly blessed I feel to be her mother.
I love you Aislin, I can't wait to bring you home.

PICTURE TOMORROW

We just got the call that we can pick up our referral package tomorrow! So we will be getting up at 6am to drive to Halifax for 8:30 to see Aislin's picture for the first time. Words cannot express the feeling we have right now!

Some Details of Aislin Sarah Fen Camilleri

Birthdate: December 10, 2005
Chinese Name: Jiang Cheng Fen
Her first name is Fen (means fragrant flower)
Jiang Cheng is her second and last name (same as the location of the orphanage!)
She is currently living in Yangjiang, Jiangcheng District Welfare Institute in Guangdong Province.
We are calling her second name Sarah after Tara's great grandmother.

We will be travelling to the city of Guangzhou probably beginning of January
We will hopefully be going to Halifax on Friday to pick up our referral package that includes her picture and all the other information and we will post it all as soon as we get home!!!!

I added a new link that will show you some information about Guangdong!

REFERRALS ARE HERE

WE MADE THE CUTOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY INCLUDED THE 25TH!!!! CAN'T WRITE MORE THROUGH TEARS, WE ARE JUST THRILLED AND WILL WRITE MORE AFTER WE HEAR FROM OUR AGENCY.
UPDATE: We heard from our agency and it's confirmed!

Referrals Tonight or Tomorrow night....and now they say possibly Monday..

Referrals will be out tonight or tomorrow night...they are 11 hours ahead of us in China so the referrals will be released at about 2 am eastern time. There are rumors all over the place about the cut off date...some say the 23rd or 24th and some even say the 28th....we'd be VERY surprised if they made it to the 28th, happy but very surprised. So since neither one of us ever sleep through an entire night (which will come in handy when Aislin is home!), I'm sure we'll log on to the computer and check the CCAA website to see if it's been updated to show the new cutoff date. We'll update this tomorrow or Friday whenever the update comes out.

Looks like up to the 24th so far....

More
and more posts are saying that it looks like CCAA will only get to the 24th...we are the 25th. Either way we will be doing the snoopy dance you see to the left! If we don't make it in this batch we only have to wait four more weeks until we see a picture of our little girl's face, we can handle that. We aren't waiting in the months and months anymore, we are in the weeks. It'll also make the wait much easier knowing that we will definately be in the batch after this one. It'll give me a chance to get more training at work and a little more time to prepare for her to come home. We know you are all anxiously waiting with us, she's not just our daughter, she's also a sister, a granddaughter, great granddaughter, niece and a cousin. This little girl has so many people who can't wait to see her little face! Hang on Aislin, we are almost there!!!

The Stork is in the Air!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Referrals are on their way......the rumor is somewhere between August 23rd and August 29th are included. (We are August 25th). So it's possible though not probable that we will get our referral by the end of next week. We say not probable because I guess we are guarding our hearts. It's easier after this long wait to expect less and maybe pleasantly surprised. So for the next week or so we will be once again sitting on the edge of our seats, with our hearts in our hands all ready to see how close we are to bringing Aislin home. Keep watching we'll let you know what the scoop is as soon as we know.

The Matching Room

I found this information and thought it might be useful to explain maybe why this process is taking so long.

Initially they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. Parent dossiers were reviewed months before, baby dossiers are reviewed when they arrive and then immediately matched.

So now they have a stack of baby dossiers. They look to see how far this stack will go in the month without sending out a partial day and they pull all of those files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don’t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies. This orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families. When they are through with this is when (I believe) some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date.

And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. At some point during this part of the process most agencies hear from their person in the matching room to let them know how many referrals they will be receiving and from what province(s). Some agencies share this information with their clients. Some choose not to.

So here is where we are, our paperwork is in this office somewhere and Aislin's is in this office somewhere too so we are hoping they will manage to match up her paperwork to our paperwork this month and we can all be home for Christmas!!!

Trade Fair Moon Festival

The CCAA was closed this week for the Moon Festival, so there's been no updates from China. This photo shows tourists visiting Yuyuan Garden, one of Shanghai's main attractions, as it rains in China's financial capital on October 2, 2006. China is celebrating a week-long National Day holiday or "Golden Week" holiday, which runs from October 1 to 7.
Chinese people can see the biggest mid-autumn moon in nine years on Friday night. Experts with the Astronomical Association of south China’s Guangdong Province forecast that the fine mid-autumn moon will be seen at 10 p.m. Friday (Beijing Time), when the moon is nearest to the Earth. The last time the mid-autumn moon was nearest to the Earth was in 1997 and the next time will happen in 2015.

So tomorrow night, when we look up at the same moon that she has already seen, we will wonder where she is and find great comfort in knowing we'll bringing her home soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and a very Happy Birthday to Mom.

The Ultrasound

Since we are getting so close to bringing Aislin home we figured it's probably time we shared our only ultra sound picture with you! It's kind of hard to see her we know, but if you look very close.......

REFERRALS ARE OUT WOOHOO!!

Great news! Referrals are out and they cover from July 23 to August 9th! That is a significant increase and we are ecstatic! There is a good possibility we could be next!
So happy today!

Referrals Have Been Mailed

Referrals have apparently been mailed on Friday, now I'm not sure if that's this Friday (today) or last Friday or even how they are sent, regular mail...fed ex...so many questions!!
So we figure we'll hear something early next week as to how far they got with this batch of referrals. We are on pins and needles today, it's going to be us soon!
I can't believe I am wishing a weekend would hurry up and get by, but we really want to know. Oh please please please have included some of August in this next batch so that we are next after that!!!!

Referrals Are Coming

Ok, now that we are getting closer to it being our turn, we are kind of going a little crazy with anticipation!!! The next batch of referrals should be out any day now and we hope with all our might that they please include some of August in this next batch. We are getting so close! I've been checking the CCAA website and the Rumor website (links to both sites are on the side of this page) about 50 times a day I think just hoping that it changes soon! If they get to the middle of August in this next batch then there is a good chance we could get our referral next month, with travel 6-8 weeks later, mind you they seem to still be taking three months to get through one month of referrals so it could be the month after that but hey, we are sooooooooo close now! Even the puppies are excited! Ha ha! Poor things have no idea what's about to hit them!

Another new baby in the family!!!

Angie and Gilles have announced that they are expecting a little one in Spring of next year! We are so happy for them. Can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl!!!
Now we'll have two babies to love instead of one!!!