Journal Archives:

Post-China

2006

July 14, 2007
It's hard to believe we are actually packing this morning in preparation for our departure on Monday! I anticipate that this will be our last journal post until after our return from China. Please see the Travel Log page for updates while we are away. We will be attempting to update there daily. Thank you so much to all of you for you encouragement and emotional support throughout this stage of the adventure. Most of all, thank you Heavenly Father for sustaining us, putting this dream in our hearts, uniting us with our little girl and for adopting us as your own...Great is Thy faithfulness. Stay tuned for the Grand Finale of "The Journey to Rebekah"...Travel Log followed shortly thereafter by the Opening Act of "Life Redefined!"

July 7, 2007
With the help of donations from friends and family we were able to beg, borrow and purchase 100 lbs (the maximum luggage allowance for two suitcases) - several hundred dollars worth of needed items for Harmony Outreach and the Bentley Family, including child-care supplies, medicine, vitamins, foodstuffs, a laptop, etc! Thank you so much for your help and support. It is a tremendous blessing to be able to deliver this gift on your behalf!

July 5, 2007 We received our Travel Invitation in the mail today. This is the "official" document (with Rebekah's adorable passport picture) saying we are invited to China. Wow, this is the last document we will receive until we are in China. We are officially ready to go with every document we need to take to China.

Last night we had an awesome 4th of July. We had family over and our neighbors dropped by and we all did fireworks together. We are blessed to have such sweet neighbors. Everyone is looking forward to meeting Rebekah. She will have quite a reception. It just felt so good to really celebrate knowing we are going to rescue our daugher. Patterson's baby shower was really amazing. He will post pictures under photos in the next few days. Also, he set up the "travel log" page for our trip. Check it out! Eleven days to go!

July 1, 2007
June 26th was just another normal work day for me. I was scrambling to prepare for a budget meeting with the director of finance and the executive director. I pulled together my reports just in time for their arrival at my office. Moments into the discussion, we were interrupted by Vince, our Clinical Systems Admin. He had a panicked look on his face and said something had come up that needed my immediate attention. I looked at him, looked at the Dir of Fin and the ED, looked back at Vince, knowing full well that he would not interrupt a meeting like this unless the world was coming to an end. I jumped up, apologizing to the Dir of Fin and the ED for the interruption, and followed Vince down the hall. To my surprise, he passed right by the Data Center (the heart and soul of our network operations) and headed towards HIM (Health Information Management). My mind was doing calculations at approximately 2 teraflops (two trillion floating point calculations) per second trying to anticipate whatever catastrophe awaited me in HIM! It must be personnel! Someone must be bleeding out the eyes? Maybe someone finally snapped and is bashing the digitizer with their stapler! We rounded the corner into the adjoining office and I experienced one of those cliche sci-fi robot moments. You know the one: they feed the evil robot an incalculable equation, following which he sputters, gurgles and exclaims - "does not compute" while smoke pours out of his robot ears rendering him useless. As things went into slow motion, things meaning my brain, I first noticed all of my staff in one room at the same time...hmm, curious...having a meeting without me...could be mutiny. Then I noticed a plethora of pink: decorations, table cloth, cake? Then I spied three children sitting on the floor, strangely familiar...hey, why are my boys at this meeting!? I stood in the middle of the room for approximately 14 seconds, surrounded by my grinning co-workers and family, before my brain chose to resume normal operations, returning the calculated result of the equation - "what the heck is going on?"...SURPRISE BABY SHOWER!!! Needless to say, I was stupefied, completely overwhelmed, totally surprised and delighted! They had snacks, cake, balloons and presents...tons of 'em! They took great delight, as secretly did I, in making me open every one of them, holding up each, tiny, adorable, girl outfit (I only held up a couple backwards and/or upside down!). It was incredible. It was hands-down the most thoughtful and touching thing any co-workers have ever done for me. Although they were unable to capture a picture of my face when I entered the room, I am told that this is a close approximation:

To those of you who were involved, THANK YOU. You are amazing.

June 21, 2007
We have dates! We will be leaving July 16th and returning August 1st. We are very excited! It turns out the US consulate made an exception for us to travel at this time, as opposed to five or six weeks from now. Our agency was requesting this exception for us and two other families. We were the only ones accepted. The other two families have to wait. We feel very blessed that we get to go next month. Anyway, we have purchased our plane tickets. We will fly from Portland to Tokyo and then from Toyko to Beijing! That is about 17 hours on the plane! If anyone wants to pray for free upgrades at the gate for us, we wouldn’t mind! We will be on the plane for 19-20 hours on the way home with Rebekah!! Let’s hope she’s a good traveler. We will post our itinerary when we get it! For now we are counting the days: 25 to go!

June 18, 2007
We got travel approval today! They had us leaving a month from now, but we are currently inquiring on the possibility of leaving earlier. We will find out tomorrow. If we don’t leave for another month, the boys and I are going to have to make some plans to keep us busy. As for my story, I was having a difficult time with all of this waiting last week on Friday. I thought we had been skipped in getting travel approval (turns out we probably got travel approval last week but didn’t know until today). Anyway, I was blubbering (just a little!) I stopped and prayed and told the Lord I needed some encouragement. I was hoping somebody would call or email me with something that would lift my spirits. Not five minutes after praying, I walked into the kitchen and found this sitting on the counter:

My son, Nathanael, had gone to the computer and created this message that was my answer to prayer. God has used our children so many times to speak into our lives. It is truly amazing. The crying really started up again and Nathanael was confused as to why his message made me cry more. I explained to him how I had prayed and how quickly God had answered my prayer and used him to do it. It made Nathanael light up and really lifted my spirits!! I just thought I would share this as a testimony that God is SO AWESOME!! We will let you know our confirmed travel dates tomorrow!!

June 18, 2007
It’s Monday morning and we are REALLY hoping this week is our week. We had a nice Father’s Day yesterday, but there was an undertone of a little sadness at missing our baby girl. I do have a little story to tell, which I will have to tell later because I don’t know how to put pictures on this page. Check back tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully, we will have other GOOD NEWS soon.

June 15, 2007
This has been a LOOOOOONG week. We still have not received travel approval. It has now been over four weeks since we received our letter of acceptance. We are hoping and praying that next week will be our week. We are so ready to go. The waiting is getting very difficult. There have been very few times in our lives where we wish we could fall asleep and skip the weekend to wake up Monday morning! This will be Patterson’s last Father’s Day without his baby girl. I will post as soon as we get travel approval, hopefully Monday or Tuesday!!!

June 4, 2007
Well, Thursday will be three weeks since we received our Letter of Approval. This means that we should be getting our travel approval in a week or so. I really hope we will be on our way to China before June is over. Patterson and I have been given the opportunity to visit an orphanage while we are in China. We will leave a few days early and visit an orphanage called Harmony Outreach. This story began when a friend of mine recommended that I read a book called “Saving Levi.” It is about a little boy from China who was abandoned in a field when he was six weeks old and was burned over 70% of his body. It is a wonderful story of this little boy being rescued. The author of the book (and adoptive mother of Levi) is from Vancouver, WA, but they are living in China running Harmony Outreach. We contacted them and asked them if we could visit the orphanage and bring some supplies. They replied and gave us an invitation. We are so excited!! In fact, if their guest cottage is available they have invited us to stay the night. They asked us to let them know as soon as we have confirmed dates and they would try to reserve the cottage. We would be so honored to be able to spend so much time with them and the children. We have also been sponsoring a little girl from this orphanage. They informed us last week that the little girl we are sponsoring has been adopted. Although we were excited to get to meet this little girl, we are so happy that she has a forever family! My parents and sister are also sponsoring another little girl named Emily from this orphanage. I am really hoping to meet this little girl and get pictures of us together for my parents and sister. That would so awesome!!!! This last week has just been so amazing. God has been answering prayers left and right for our family and for some families we have been praying for while they have been in China! Our turn is next!! We will post as soon as we have travel approval! We are getting close and my stomach feels the butterflies coming on!!

May 28, 2007
We received the translation of our recent update for Rebekah and all is well! We have also posted updated pictures on www.flickr.com/photos/thecakefamily.

May 22, 2007
Wow! As most of you know this last week has been very exciting with one surprise after another! Yesterday we received five new pictures of Rebekah! She is so beautiful!! We also received a medical update and growth chart, but it is written in Chinese. We are having that translated now, but it won’t be finished until Friday or Saturday. We haven’t been able to stop staring at her pictures. She has gotten so big. It was pretty shocking to see her so grown up. I definitely had mixed emotions when I saw them! I have to try hard not to focus on the time that we have missed. The boys are ecstatic! It has been funny to listen to them talk and pray and throw the adoption lingo around! In the adoption world there are a lot of acronyms that are used for long titles. Today the boys bought these toys that are “alien pets” in a tube. They have to feed them and then they are supposed to “grow.” They came in these cocoons that have to be washed with water so they can “hatch.” Well, Nathanael had accidently dropped a small stick inside the tube with the alien. He was upset about it and the other boys suggested that he just pretend that the alien was born with the stick inside the cocoon. He hesitated, then very seriously said, “OK, well… I’ll have a ‘special needs’ alien.” With that conclusion, he was very happy. It was so adorable. This whole process has been so good for them. It has taught them patience, sensitivity to the “special needs” kids and learning to love someone and pray for someone whom they have never met. They have seen God answer their prayers that went beyond their expectations. I have learned those same lessons, too! Well, time to sign off. Oh, our Letter of Acceptance is on its way to China so the official countdown begins today in waiting for ONE MORE hurdle, and that is travel approval. This usually takes 2-4 weeks. We need this from China so we can schedule our itinerary and buy our plane tickets. Once our travel approval is here it will be 1-2 weeks before we leave. Also, while we are in China, we will be updating our “Travel Log” every day (as long as we have internet access). We will be posting a lot of pictures and videos so you can keep up on what is happening! We are finally getting close!

May 17, 2007
Just in case you are not in the Western Hemisphere and therefore did not hear the screaming coming from our house, we got our LOA (letter of acceptance) today!!! The kids picked up on the fact that Rachelle was on the phone with our caseworker and, following the thumbs up sign from her indicating good news, promptly went outside to scream their lungs out. Immediately thereafter, Rachelle noticed them standing on the back patio bowing their heads to thank the Lord. Anyhow, we went out to dinner with friends and family to celebrate tonight and are now enjoying that blissful state of euphoria that is somewhere between elated, relieved, undone and overjoyed. We hope to be on our way to China in four to six weeks. Thank you for your continued prayers!

May 6, 2007
We finally got the quilt squares laid out and we are getting ready to sew them together. Here’s a picture (click for a larger image) of what it will look like, sort of. Meanwhile, we are still WAITING...day 77. We’ll update if we have any news.

April 22, 2007
In the last few days I have been reflecting on the adventure this adoption process has been. Like any adoptive parents we have been through many bumps, twists and turns along the way. As I think about it now, I shake my head and breathe a sigh of relief that we have made it this far. Yet, though the road has been difficult at times and has surely tried our faith, I see that God was there walking beside us with every step we took. How is it that God in all His greatness and majesty cares to walk beside me every day of my life? I am so humbled to be his daughter; to call him Father. He is teaching me to trust Him more, and each day I realize how much more I need Him. Through all the bumps, twists and turns in life, God is right there beside me. That brings me so much comfort and courage to go through whatever circumstances are ahead. I was reading in Deuteronomy 32 this morning and, despite all the changes life brings, God remains true, He remains just, and He is my rock.

I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is He.

April 19, 2007
We sent a letter and two pictures of our family to Rebekah’s foster family about a week ago. We also included a self-addressed stamped envelope in hopes that they will write us back. They should receive the letter in the next week or so. A few days ago I came across an adoption website and recognized the little girl on the page. She is one of the little girls we inquired on when we inquired on Rebekah. I contacted the family and was able to speak to them via email. It has been fun writing back and forth. Their daughter is only four days younger than Rebekah and the girls are obviously from the same orphanage. Sandy and her family will be traveling before us and we are excited to watch their journey.
Please pray for us to get our travel approval soon. Our fingerprints expire on July 11, 2007. Our trip to China has to be done before that date. It would be really nice to travel before then so we don’t have to get them redone. If we don’t have approval by the end of May we will have to drive to Seattle to get them done again and then wait for the fingerprints to pass through immigrations. We would really appreciate your prayers! Hopefully we will have some positive updates soon!!

March 18, 2007
Yay! The orphanage received our care package. We put in a note requesting that the orphanage forward the package to the foster family. We won’t know if the package is forwarded or not until we pick up Rebekah. I don’t care about getting anything back EXCEPT for the cameras! We told the foster parents that if they will bring the cameras with Rebekah then we will have copies of the pictures made for them while we are there. You never if know the orphanage will open the package and decide they want to keep whatever is in there. The likelihood is that they will forward it to the foster parents. The cameras have Rebekah’s name on them along with her birth date.
A lot of people have been asking where in China we are going. We will begin our adventure spending two days in Beijing. We will tour the Great Wall among a few other things and hopefully get acclimated to the time a little bit. From Beijing, we will fly to Lanzhou. This is in the Gansu province, about four hours south of where Rebekah was born in Wuwei City. The orphanage brings the children from Wuwei City to Lanzhou by bus. We will meet Rebekah for the first time either on the day we fly in to Lanzhou or the day after. We will spend five days in Lanzhou completing paperwork and just waiting on the Chinese government to finish the little details. I am glad we will be staying there for a while so we can just get to know Rebekah. From Lanzhou, we will fly to Guangzhou which is in Southern China. This is where we will spend the last week of our trip. The US Consulate is here and this is where we will get Rebekah’s visa. Rebekah will have her medical exam here and we will also swear before a judge that we will never abandon Rebekah and that we will raise her like our own. We will also do A LOT of walking around and shopping. Patterson is prepared for the reality that we will be buying an extra suitcase to pack all the purchases in for the trip home! One US dollar is worth eight Chinese dollars so that works well for us! We are taking as little as possible because we are each limited to ONE suitcase with a 44-lb limit (that makes for creative packing). Because this is the last leg of the trip we will be able to each have two suitcases for the flight home.
It has officially been 21 days since we sent our Letter of Intent to adopt Rebekah. The average time from sending your letter of intent to travel time is 70-120 days. We are praying for the 70-day mark!! That would put us going to China in early June. That would be awesome!! It would be so nice to have the whole summer to adjust before starting home school again! If you think of us, we would appreciate your prayers in that direction!!

March 14, 2007
A care package was sent yesterday to Rebekah and her foster family. It is supposed to arrive by March 23. I am excited about this because we sent two disposable cameras in hopes that the foster family will return the cameras to us when we pick up Rebekah. I would love to have pictures of her taken while we were waiting for travel.
My sister, Jennelle, was here from Colorado and she, my mom and godmother threw me an awesome shower. We had so much fun!! I was really blessed and received so many gifts. There were people there I didn’t even know! We have had a lot of support and enthusiasm, which really means a lot to me. Go to the photos page and click on our flickr account to see pictures.
Last night was I looking at one of Rebekah’s pictures and realized how hard I try not to think about her too much. When I allowed myself to really sit there and stare at her picture and think about her, it makes my heart swells with pain and joy and I’m ready to hop the next plane to China. It is a strange feeling to be so excited about her but at the same so sad that each day that passes is one day that I am missing in her life. The baby shower and my sister coming have kept me distracted and now I feel like the next milestone is actually going! The boys and I are trying to finish out school (the last few months have been really distracting!) For now it is a blessing that spring is coming. The flowers are blooming and you can feel spring in the air. I am glad we will travel in early summer so when my parents have the boys for two weeks they can get outside!
Well, we’ll keep you posted on any new news! Thanks for checking in!

March 3, 2007 - #2
We wanted to take a break from our usual postings to mention what wonderful boys we have. Yesterday, Rachelle and I were talking on the phone when she mentioned that we had not taken time for much “romance” lately and how frustrating it is that going out or getting away can be so expensive. Well, the boys overhead this discussion and took it upon themselves to provide a solution. They pooled their resources and presented us with this envelope, which needless to say made us feel pretty special and loved (click an image for a larger picture):

March 3, 2007
Our LOI (Letter of Intent) is officially off to China! An LOI is basically a formal statement of our desire to adopt Rebekah. So what’s next? You guessed it, wait some more. In the meantime, we anticipate sending a care package to Rebekah’s orphanage, which will hopefully be forwarded on to the foster family. This will include a couple of disposable cameras, a teddy bear for Rebekah and some small gifts for the foster family. This somewhat tricky transaction will be engineered through www.blessedkids.com. Other than that, we are contemplating preparing for travel, packing, luggage, etc. Rachelle is preparing to immensely enjoy her upcoming baby shower! Until next time…

February 26, 2007
Well, we have more exciting news! As I mentioned in my previous note, I emailed back and forth yesterday with a woman named Lori who adopted her daughter from the same orphanage that Rebekah is from. Lori had given me a link to her Flickr account so I could see pictures from their China trip. A friend of hers had a chance to see the orphanage and took pictures of some of the children there. To make a long story short, we came across a picture of Rebekah at four months old. We sent it around to get everyone’s opinion and it was unanimous. I feel so blessed to have this picture. I would have never found it if I hadn’t found Lori’s blog. Click the picture to see a larger rendition. She is the baby on the right.

February 25, 2007
It seems as though we might be getting better at waiting. It seems easier to have Rebekah’s picture to sustain us at this point. Some days I go through sheer excitement, followed by sheer panic. I have yet to start making lists. I still need to get the list going of all the lists I need to make. Got that? Right now I am just allowing myself the time of euphoria before the real work begins. I thought I would be all gung ho to start getting things prepared, but instead I find myself incapable of gathering any logical plan of where to begin.
I started doing research to try to find some information on the province where Rebekah is currently living. Although adoptions from Gansu are apparently rather rare, I came across a blog of a family whose daughter was from the same orphanage as Rebekah. I quickly emailed them in hopes that I could have contact with someone to answer some questions and share their experiences. I wasn’t disappointed. A woman named Lori responded promptly and was very sweet and open in answering my questions. They were in Gansu a little under a year ago to pick up their daughter. Her email was a real blessing.
Anyway, my sister is due to fly to see me in a week and a half – YAY!! She and my mom are throwing me a baby shower. I have to admit I am relishing every moment. One lesson I have learned as I have gotten older is to enjoy every day more. I remember when the boys were little how much I couldn’t wait for them to achieve every milestone, walking, talking, etc. Now, with Rebekah, I won’t be so quick to wish those things come to pass. I know they come quick enough without my encouragement.
For now, another waiting phase begins.

Valentine’s Day, 2007
Upon reflection this morning, as I was getting ready for the day, I was thinking about when Rebekah was conceived. I figured that she must have been conceived sometime around April of 2005. At that time, Patterson and I had been in Washington for a little over two months. As I was remembering those first few months of living here, I realized that this is the same time that I started feeling a strong desire for another child. At that point, as I mentioned in “Mom’s Story” on this website I felt like I was going crazy because we were supposed to be “done.” Isn’t God so amazing?? I believe the moment Rebekah came to life that she came to life in my heart. Isn’t it just like God to bring something so special to my mind? What a beautiful revelation to have on Valentine’s Day. I don’t know what else to say, except that I got a wonderful taste of how much God loves and cares for me. Wow.

February 10, 2007
I can’t believe I’m saying it, but we finally have been matched to our little girl!!! What a crazy week this has been. When the new special needs list came out, I was in Grand Junction visiting my sister. Patterson and I had to look at the list while we were 1000 miles apart. I have never been more thankful for email. I was due to come home on Tuesday night and Patterson was due to fly out to California on Thursday. We had one day to see each other, visit the doctor to go over the girls’ medical reports, and decide on which girls for whom we wanted to inquire. We decided on five of the girls, submitted our letters of interest that night, and hoped for the best.
We promised ourselves not to memorize any names or stare at any pictures, in hopes that this time we wouldn’t get too attached (live and learn). I managed to get through the weekend while Patterson was in California. He came home Sunday afternoon.
That Monday afternoon our adoption agency started the matching process. I have never been so tied up in knots in all my life. It felt like that moment when you’re nervous about an interview or giving a speech, only it lasted for 24 hours and was 10 times worse. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. We finally made it to Tuesday morning. We knew we were going to get “the call” from our agency that day, we just didn’t know exactly when. Patterson stayed home from work so I didn’t have to take the call alone. Finally, at about 1:00 pm the phone rang. You know that feeling when your heart beats so hard that your head pounds and all you can hear is your own heart beating?
When Patterson first answered the phone I thought, by the tone of his voice, that we hadn’t been matched. It was something like this; “Hello…. Fine, how are you? OK….. (this is where I thought it was over) followed by, OK……OK……OK…..Uh-huh…..OK…..OK…..OK.” I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and peeked my head around the corner and saw that he was writing something down on paper. Patterson looked up at me and smiled a smile that will forever be etched in my memory. Patterson wrote down her name and I frantically went to our pile of papers to find out who are daughter was. Because we hadn’t memorized any names, I had to shuffle through all the papers until I found her name. It was like a glorious treasure hunt! I had to hold the paper up for Patterson to see who she was!! Before we got the call, we had told the boys to go downstairs because we didn’t want weeping and wailing (either way it turned out) while Patterson was on the phone. I went to open the door to go downstairs to tell them they had a sister and there stood three boys with their ears to the door. I could hardly even speak. I just held up her picture and burst into tears. So, our plan for no weeping and wailing while Patterson was on the phone went up in smoke. He had to go in the other room to hear what our caseworker was telling him. The rest of this amazing day was spent calling family and friends and just staring at each other in unbelief. I remember eating that afternoon (I hadn’t been able to eat much that day or the day before), but I was still in so much shock that I couldn’t taste my food. Unfortunately, Patterson had to leave for work that afternoon so I just sort of walked around in a daze. I don’t know how Patterson even functioned that afternoon at work.
The next day we received pictures and more information via overnight UPS. It was so exciting to get two more pictures of her. I took a picture of the UPS guy holding the envelope with all Rebekah’s paperwork in it. I had asked if I could take his picture for my scrapbook. He just laughed and laughed. He said it was the first time in 27 years working for UPS that someone had asked to take his picture. It turned out great!
We should be traveling to China in 2-4 months. At this point, we are just waiting for travel approval from China.
What a blessing it has been to share this experience with our family and friends. Thank you to those who have stood by us through the ups and downs. Thank you to my mom and sister for going through this with me and for listening to my endless talk of adoption stuff and my times of frustration and tears and discouragement. I don’t know what I would do without you. To my friend, Leslie; you have been my source of encouragement; you could always put a smile on my face when I felt so down. To my brother-in-law, Matthew; thank you for flying my sister out when I needed her so much. Thank you for providing the money to decorate Rebekah’s room. That will always mean so much to me. To my Godparents, Doug and Pam; thank you for loving us and the boys like your own. To my Dad; you are such a special man. Your generosity is overwhelming. Thank you for always making family your highest priority. Finally, to the Lord; you have taught us so much through this process. I knew when we started this process that you needed to prepare us for this little girl. I didn’t realize at the time how hard the lessons would be, but I thank you for them because I know I am a stronger person than I was when we started. I have learned to trust you more and you have shown me how much you care about the little things, but more than anything, how much you care about the condition of my heart. There has been no greater earthly gift than the gift of my children. Words cannot express how blessed I feel to become Rebekah’s mother. She is an adopted daughter, just like me.