here we come!

i am speechless. i thought we wouldn't see you until september. but in my heart i hoped it would be july. i really hoped...and prayed. i knew daddy didn't have any trips this summer for a reason! i knew that God could do miracle! and he has. we are coming to get you in july!

we talked to aunt chrissy today because she was keeping the other kids. daddy and i are in corolla getting a little vacation. when we talked to aunt chrissy, she said we should check our voicemail. so we did and guess what...we are going to china! you are really going to get to be our daughter! i can't even eat i am so excited. i never thought this day would come. it seemed like forever...and now it seems like it went by so fast.

we are coming for you peanut. we really are. hang in there, it won't be long. get lots of love from your family in China. i know they are taking good care of you. pretty soon, you will be with your forever family, and we will never let you go.

Mother's Day

i am thinking about you today peanut. i can't wait until next year when we get to celebrate together. you are already my daughter, whether you are in china or here, but next year it will be extra sweet to hold you in my arms.

have lots of fun today. it won't be too long before we see you. maybe in a few months...

i love you and am so glad to be your mommy.

earthquakes and packages!

I wanted to let you all know that Lydia is safe and sound. Lots of you have asked about her and how fun it has been to have so many people already loving on our little girl! She is from Guangzhou which is in the very southern part of China, about 60 miles from Hong Kong – a long way from the earthquake action. So she is running around without a care in the world!

We have received pre-approval from China, which is the second to last piece of paperwork that we need before traveling. This came 10 days after our referral which was miraculously fast (am I even surprised?) We are now waiting for the Letter of Approval which says we can TRAVEL!!! We really have no idea how long this is going to take – could be a month, could be several months. Because China just transferred to a new online system, there is no precedent for the timelines. So…we wait and pray and know that God’s timing is perfect! And if there were ever a situation to believe that God could do the miraculous, it is with our Lydia!

Part of the joy of receiving pre-approval is that we can now send her things in the mail. So we packaged up some fun things and sent them her way. It was exciting especially for the kids (well, I was pretty excited too!) and they are now constantly asking when she is going to come! We sent her a blanket, a little dress, some shoes, 2 disposable cameras which we will get when we pick her up, some candy and nuts for her foster family, an Asian rag doll, and lots of pictures of us. We have been told that her transition will be made a lot easier if she is prepared by her foster family for adoption. So hopefully, once they get our box, they will begin to show her our pictures and teach her “Mama” and “Daddy” (I’m told they at least know those 2 English words). The more she is familiar with our faces, the more comfortable she will be when she is in our arms for the first time.

Today we went down to the beach with the kids. Eric’s sister was with us and took some pictures of our family. I couldn’t help but think that someone was missing. It wasn’t really our whole family. And then as I looked around at all the “normal” families I thought, I wonder what this will be like when Lydia comes? How many stares are we going to get? How many dumb questions like, “Is she your real daughter?” What is it going to be like to have a little girl who looks so different than us? How is she going to react to looking like she doesn’t belong? We know how much we love her and how much God has orchestrated events to place her in our family, but how do we communicate that to her? How do we raise to her to believe, despite all of the unknowns and why’s of her past, that she is our daughter; and God’s plan for her, from the beginning of time, was to be with our family?

These are the questions we find ourselves talking about now. It is no longer the anticipation of who she will be, what she will look like, when she will come. We are now thinking how in the world do we do this? This adoption thing is huge, it is lifelong, parts of it are very heavy, it is a situation that will take all the wisdom God can give us (as if just regular parenting wasn’t enough!) But…we are loving the adventure! We can’t wait until we hold her sweet little self in our arms. And almost as much as we anticipate that moment, we look forward to that first time we can share her with you all. God has done a miracle and we absolutely can’t wait to shout it from the mountain tops with the proof right there in our arms!

Lots of love,
Ashleigh

So Many, So Few

I was just reading on a website about how long the wait is for a child from China. People are in agony waiting for their children. Waiting for their dreams to become a reality. So many are ready, and so few are seeing it happen. I read through the various comments and couldn't help but be reminded how much of a miracle you are. I don't know why God saw fit to do a miracle for us, but he has and I will be forever grateful. Why didn't we have to wait five years? It was only four months ago that we were settling in to the reality of not seeing our Lydia for several years. And then POOF!, God moved and here you are. Your cherub face staring at me everytime I open the refrigerator

I still get scared. Are you really going to be ours? Are we really going to be able to pick you up and smell you? To introduce you as our child? There is a twinge of hesitation to believe and if I let it go it turns into a gut-wrenching fear that consumes me. Will China reject us for some reason? Will something happen?

Oh God, please keep Lydia safe and bring us to her quickly. She is your child, before she is ours.

miracles

What a difference a week makes! Our days have been filled with more paperwork, a few fun purchases (I couldn’t resist a couple of things at Old Navy for our sweet peanut), and moments of absolute excitement followed by sheer terror. I can’t believe we have our little girl! Her picture is on our fridge, in my purse, in our bedroom. She is already deep in our hearts and well on her way to being right here in our home. Can you believe it?

It seems like everyday brings new thoughts about what the next steps on this journey will be like. She speaks Chinese. She eats with chopsticks. She has never seen a car seat. She doesn’t like cheerios and mac ‘n cheese, probably completely grossed out by a hotdog. She will be scared out of her mind when she is handed to us. What will her grief look like? Will she scream for 3 hours, will she refuse us to touch her, will she simply shut down, will she demand to be held for hours at a time, will she shun one of us and cling to the other? We expect her transition to be hard. We often think about what life would be like for our Micah if a stranger came and dropped him in the middle of China. He would be terrified, and Lydia will be too – they are virtually the same age. We are thrilled to bring her home and at the same time find ourselves preparing for a few difficult weeks and months. But even in the midst of those moments of “What in the world are we doing!?!?” we know that God has brought us this little girl to be ours, to love as our very own daughter, to be our little sister and we can’t wait! We are praying we can go get her on the soon end of things, which would be sometime in July or August.

We are also praying for God’s provision for the remainder of the finances. Lots of people have asked about this and at the risk of being a little too forthcoming, I will just lay it out there for you to specifically pray with us. We have paid almost $10,000 of our money thus far. We have received approximately $5000 in grants and we have another $10,000 to pay. Should we need to we have a home equity line to draw on, but we are hoping that we might be eligible for a few more grants to defray the cost a bit. We know God will provide for the remainder of the funds, whether that is through our ability to pay off a loan, or through additional grants. A huge variable is airfare. Should we find ourselves flying around the time of the Olympics, airfare could be several thousand dollars more than normal. And since Lydia will be two, we will need to purchase a ticket for her, something that we did not initially plan for. It’s a lot but we know God is aware of the bill! And He will provide in the way that is best for our family.

God has done a miracle to bring us Lydia. He led us to special needs which wasn’t even on our radar screen 4 months ago, sent our agency a random little girl (as opposed to the ‘batches’ that they normally get), bumped us ahead of 11 other families, and blessed us with Lydia who from all accounts is a healthy girl who needs a few double cheeseburgers in her diet. That is a miracle. There is no other explanation. I have never felt burdened to pray for a specific miracle until this journey, and God has not disappointed. He has truly given us more than we could have asked for or imagined. Lydia will always embody the miraculous; we can’t wait to see what’s around the corner.

Thank you so much for praying with us! It is so fun to say…we can’t WAIT for you to meet her… SOON!

Blessings,
Eric and Ashleigh

Thank you

So who are you, sweet daughter of mine? I can't wait to meet you. I am soaking up every detail of your records and staring at your pictures trying to see every little created part of your being. I wonder about your hair - did they shave your little head, or do you just have sticky-uppy hair? You will fit in either way - your brothers both had crazy hair and daddy doesn't have any. I wonder if you will have ponytails when we come to get you.

I wonder what your personality is, what's in your heart, how have you overcome so much already. There have been so many who have loved you in your short life. Those who gave you life, I am sure treasured you for the three months they had you. I imagine that they couldn't bear to part from you and they held you for as long as they could in their country. I wish I could meet them. I wish I could tell them how much we have loved you already. I wish I could explain to them that we will cherish you and bring meaning to the life they have given you. I wish I could say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you from the deepest part of my being.

I will not ever be able to say those thank you's. But I will be able to put my arms around you and bring you the tenderness of a mother. I wait for you sweet one.

The Announcement

I never thought I would be sending this email on April 18, 2008 but I AM!!!!!!! We received a call from our agency on Tuesday afternoon saying that they had a little girl for us to look at. This was after we had been told a few days prior that there were 11 families waiting in front of us who all had basically the same request for a child. A MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea how we jumped to the front of the line but I am going to go with MIRACLE! Her special need was "developmental delay (physical growth)" so we were naturally a bit apprehensive, which is why I didn't send out an email saying that we were even entertaining the idea. But the more we looked at her records, the more we saw that she is in fact small but she has reached all of her developmental milestones on time and has grown steadily. She is just tiny! We met with an international adoption pediatrician at CHKD this morning and after thoroughly going over records he indicated that she looked great! He said that he has seen lots of kids come to a good home and drastically improve their growth which may be her case, or, worst case would be that she would always be petite and may struggle a bit in school. He of course gave us no guarantees but was very encouraging. No signs of abnormalities, syndromes, physical defects, etc. WE HAVE A NEW DAUGHTER!!!!!!!

So the million dollar question...when do we get her! Our agency lists 3-5 months as the expected wait time before we travel. So we'll see... Beings that the Olympics are in China in August and the country is expected to shut down, I am thinking more the fall end of things but who knows! We are ready!!!!! WE CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!

Thank you guys so much for praying! Keep praying that we can get her soon, soon, soon! I will write more with all the MANY miracles we have been seeing but I wanted to get this out to all of you asap. I have of coursed attached a picture so you can see our cute little button, Lydia Kate Li Sanzone!

To God be the glory for his MIRACULOUS hand!!!!!

**Her birthday is listed as 12-28-05 so she is 28 months. That is a guesstimate as they don't completely know when she was born. She was abandoned in late March of 2006. Anyway, her and Micah will be buddies (he will be 3 in May)!