Legacy of the Adopted Child

I found this beautiful poem and thought what a sweet way to celebrate our journey as well as acknowledge the birth mothers of all the adopted children. I thought I would post it this month, to celebrate Mother's Day and Adoption Mommies to be day! Please enjoy.

Legacy of an Adopted Child Author -- unknown
Once there were two women, Who never knew each other. One you do not remember, The other you call mother.
Two different lives, Shaped to make yours one. One became your guiding star, The other became your sun.
The first gave you life, And the second taught you to live it. The first gave you need for love, And the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality, The other gave you a name. One gave you the seed of talent, The other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions, The other calmed your fears. One saw your first sweet smile, The other dried your tears.
One gave you up... It was all that she could do. The other prayed for a child, And God led her straight to you.
And now you ask me Through your tears, The age-old questions Through the years.
Heredity or environment... Which are you a product of? Neither, my darling...neither, Just two different kinds of love.

A great way to spend today

A few years back, my little niece decided to pursue dancing, (of course not without a little persuasion from her "Aunt Ivy" and a few bribes that she could sleep over any time she wanted!) While I have watched her blossom into an incredible ballerina, today I went to see my eleven year old celeb. practice. For at least 30 minutes she had no idea I was there, so I was privledged to watch her from a different perspective, a serious young dancer, now practicing with seasoned professionals for an upcoming recital that she had to audition for. The studio was very hot, the dancers at least 2hrs into a 3 plus hour rehersal, and lot's of taped toes and ankles. I saw a serious girl now, all eyes on her instructor and older mentors. Her movements fluid and graceful, as beads of sweat seem to make her face gleam in the light. I stood there in complete amazement at this child's complete attention to every detail. While most kids would be home on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, Nik was pouring her heart into learning this new routine. I wanted to run up and give her this great big hug, but of course didn't want to embarass her but more importantly distract her. Then as if we were both thinking the same thing, she turned around and stuck her tongue out at me!. Yep that's the little girl I am used to seeing, I laughed and it just made my day. I guess it's worth sharing, because while I would go to every performance, I never fully understood the hard work and her committment, until I watched today. Thanks Snickerdoodle, for putting a huge smile on my face!

Oh, and then it was onto the Battle of the Siblings as we headed to the Tennis Courts for some even hotter competition. Gee, I felt old, seemed like yesterday when I could run all over the courts, guess it was the fact that I was in sandals that slowed me down today (good excuse, but I was told I looked like I was swatting at flies). Yep kids say the most delightful things! So I am keeping this to remind myself and them, what good sports we all are, and that humor really should be part of every day!

I love you Jake, Syd and Snicker!

Aunt Ivy

I just love quilts!

Right click on the quilts for a close up picture

Thanks Melinda for making these beautiful quilts! I took some of the squares from my collection from the One Hundred Good Wishes Swap group on Yahoo, and with the amazing talent of Melinda Keppler had several crib quilts made. I received this photo today. I love it!

The first is a lap quilt that Melinda made after I sent her the border and backround. The fabric is darling and called Memoirs from China Mei Mei, with little sisters playing and celebrating life. She coordinated all the rest and what a great job, such a fine talent. Like I said I can't even sew buttons (hence velcro and zippers LOL).

The next phot is the very girly animal quilt done with the most adorable baby animal fabrics. Of course the back is PINK, and check out my favorite of the german shephard holding a stuffed cat in his mouth. That was my addition, since my pup walks around with some stuffed animal all the time, kind of like a kid with their stuffed toy!

Oh this really made a stressful day actually pretty nice. By the way I still haven't looked at my agency email. I think I will wait on that one.

Okay, now I can have another cup of coffee.

Thank you so much Melinda and Laura too!

Hugs to you both,

Ivy

It's that time of the month again!

Yep, it's that time of the month again, meaning the first week of every month when we all find out how quick or slow the CCAA has progressed in April. For me, this means my palms are sweating, my heart is skipping a beat and I am sure I will make Dani completely crazy for at least the next few days trying to make sense of why the wait keeps getting longer. As I write this blog entry an email awaits me from our agency notifying all of the dates the CCAA has matched up to and usually the Provinces the children from which this group of children came from. I don't know whether to delete it, or open it out of pure curiosity. But my curiosity may turn into this pain of disappointment if they haven't finished October yet.

Every month I try a new approach, emotionally that is, like empathy, jubilation (haven't felt that since they did 2 entire months of reviews), anticipation, apathy, logic, distractions (shopping is a good one), lately, someway to calm myself versus the above surge of adrenaline that I no longer get from java. It's all part of the process I keep telling myself. But would someone please convince my heart!

I guess I want some sort of symmetry here versus ambiguity. I want so desparetly to be holding our daughter sooner rather than later. Since I have never been a Momma before, I don't even know if these emotions make sense, but yet month to month I do try and stay focused on the end result, finally having the child we so desparetly and patiently waited for! Yes, that makes this entire wait worth it. So for now, yep I am hanging again, by a Thin Red Thread,

and will lay off the coffee for a bit.

Ivy

Our "100 Good Wishes Quilt"

The paperchase of this process was the easy part, and now we will patiently wait the many months ahead till we receive our daughters referral. The time frame has steadily increased, however compared to a lifetime of waiting, 18 months or so should be relatively uneventful. We welcome your good thoughts and prayers along our journey, so that we can give this baby girl a well deserved happy, loving life.
To welcome and celebrate a new life, There is a wonderful tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or what is known as "100 Good Wishes Quilt". It is a custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square patch of cloth. The patches are sewn together into a beautiful quilt that contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed the fabric.

After we received our DTC (Dossier to China) date of 10/06/06, I learned about this project and thought what a fun, loving, busy way to keep my mind off of the wait and concentrate on doing something productive. So I joined the One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt group on Yahoo and now almost 200 "Squishes" later I had to slow down. However, thanks to the wonderful people on that site, I met and swapped fabrics and good wishes with families from all over the world. From all over the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, I was able to get acquainted with some very special people, some of whom I actually became friends with.

The funny thing is, I can't sew a button on, however, thanks to Melinda Keppler, I already have one baby quilt, and she is working on 3 others for me! I guess a little girl can never have too many quilts! Actually, each one is a true work of art, with the design and credit going to Melinda of course.

The most amazing part of this project was that it kept me busy for 5mths, and gave me a reason to look foward to the mail. Every day or so there were several letters that contained heartfelt wishes for our child and our family. Many of which brought me to tears, good tears of course. So for now I slowed the pace down, thinking that joining a group every now or then is better then trying to do it all at once! I finally found my sofa after clearing all the fabric from off of it!

Now comes the fun of putting all the notes and good wishes in a book that our little girl can read once she is older. I guess I will have to find my creative side for the scrapbook project.

Happiness is

Something to do

Something to love

Something to hope for.

Chinese Proverb

The love within our hearts only grows stronger with each passing day for our little Ladybug!

Dani and Ivy

LID 11/09/06

Our Journey to our Daughter

Hello, my name is Ivy and together with my husband Dani, we decided to adopt our first child from China.

Of course many ask why we chose China, and there are many reasons, the first being that we wanted a little girl and the second being that China has been very consistent with the agencies they work in assuring the process goes as smoothly as possible.

We are ecstatic about this very personal decision and elated beyond words that one day in our future a little girl, born half way across the world, will wait for us to become her forever parents. This is a journey that involves love, patience and finding the inner strength to endure the seemingly endless months of waiting. Currently we are 6 months since our Dossier was sent to China, and every month brings us closer to our little ladybug!

Well, why do I call her our Ladybug, it's easy. One day this past fall, I came home from work and found all these pretty little ladybugs flying about our front door. I smiled to myself as I know that ladybugs bring good fortune and hoped that this was a Red Thread Connection to our daughter. Yes, there are definitely connections that only those of us in this process can relate to.

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break."

--An ancient Chinese belief

Though we both work full time, I for one am never too exhausted to keep thinking, smiling, daydreaming, and hoping that these months of waiting will result in the anticipation of holding our baby daughter for the first time.

Yes the wait is hard, so I started to blog. It's that simple. I hope that as we share this journey, we will gain the insight, friendships and strength from family, friends and those of you who have also chosen the path of adoption.

My thoughts are with all of you out there also waiting and those about to receive your referrals in the next few days. So please continue to send good thoughts and prayers so that the wait speeds up, just by a few days!

More posts and pics to come, as I become more proficient at blogging (this is officially my first time).

Welcome to my blog

Ivy