The Story of Maynard...

So I am finally getting back in the groove of the real world since returning from China. Work, Vacation Bible School, travel, and a BIG birthday have brought me back with a thud! I am going to try to get back into the groove of blogging again as well. Since I have only posted once or twice about the adoption, I thought that I would fill all of you in on the details because a lot of people have been asking. Here goes...

I felt the call to adopt from China on my 25th birthday. I was in Singapore walking around that night by myself and I know that God told me to adopt. The problem...I was not married and I was not 30 years old! When my hubby and I got married, I shared my call with him, and although he supported it, he did not feel called for the same reasons I did. We continued to look into it, but since you had to be 30 and could not even start your paperwork until you were 29 1/2, there was nothing that we could do. Fast forward to July 2007 when we went on our first mission trip together to China. We knew that this was an opportunity for us to grow in our walk with Christ, grow in our marriage, and grow personally. At the end of the trip, I asked my hubby if he thought that the trip helped us and he said, "Well, it makes me want a Chinese baby, now." I am pretty sure that is the quote. He is very to the point!! I think that for him to experience the Chinese people for himself, especially working in the orphanage, and by being around other adoptive families, he realized that God really had called me to adopt and God started working on his heart, too.

We did not start on February 3, 2008, like we could have (the day I turned 29 1/2). We talked about it and closer to the end of the month, my hubby said, we should do it. We wanted to wait until we had paid everything off and that has been a huge blessing. We filled out the initial application on February 22, 2008 and we received a phone call and e-mail on February 26, letting us know that we had been approved for the China program. That is just the beginning. Without boring you with the details of all the un-fun papers that we had to fill out, I will make a quick list of the important things...certified birth/marriage certificates, employment letters, Hague adoption training, physicals completed with tons of tests, health/fire inspection of the house, police reports, background checks, photo pages, financial statements, etc. Here is a quick timeline...

• Feb. 22, 2008 - filled out application for AWAA
• Feb. 26, 2008 - approved for China program
• Feb. 29, 2008 - started Dossier (collection of paperwork)
• March 13, 2008 - met Family coordinator from AWAA
• April 23, 2008 - started Home Study packet
• May 9, 2008 - sent bulk of Dossier to AWAA
• May 16, 2008 - sent Home Study packet to AWAA Texas
• May 29, 2008 - Daddy's 35th birthday!!
• May 30, 2008 - had first Home Study interviews
• May 31, 2008 - had individual Home Study interview, got verbal approval so we told Ge (Hubby's mom) that she was going to be a grandma again
• June 1, 2008 - told Gigi and Pops (my parents) that they are going to be grandparents and Nana and Papa Tex that they are going to be great-grandparents
• June 2, 2008 - Gigi told Papa Fisher that he was going to be a great-grandpa again
• June 8, 2008 - Gigi told Granny and Papa Seigler that they were going to be great-grandparents
• June 14, 2008 - Home Study interview at our house
• July 25, 2008 - Received Hague Approval Letter
• July 28, 2008 - Received completed home study and were approved for twins
• July 30, 20085 - Sent off I-800 for approval from USCIS (Immigration)
• August 3, 2008 - Mommy's 30th birthday!!

So we are waiting for approval from immigration to bring one or two little girls into the United States. After that, we will be ready to send it our Dossier to China and be logged-in (LID) or in line for our little girl or girls!! Yeah!!

We are undecided on a name. I thought that we had picked out a name and I had a couple of things monogrammed, but my hubby informed me that since we are Baptist, we need to have a committee meeting to decide her name (or names!). So in the mean time, we are calling her Maynard! I know that it is a boy's name and it is strange, but when we told our families that we were adopting they all asked what we were going to call her and since we have not decided on any names we didn't know what to call her. We did not want to call her "baby" or "her" for the next three years, but we are not ready to decide on a name. We watched a prime time show that many of you might have watched, but that I will not endorse in print, where they had a little boy and had not picked out a name for him by the time that he was born. They heard a doctor being paged at the hospital and so they decided on that name, but a few hours later, the dad found out that his grandpa had passed away. He asks if they can name the baby after him instead. The wife agrees and says, "I would love to name him after Grandpa Joe.", to which the dad replies, "No, it was my mom's dad, Maynard."! Hmmmm...So Maynard it is....at least for right now!! She will hate us if it sticks!!

So we are on the search for a name...if anyone has any suggestions, we would love to hear them. We are not into common names because we do not want her to be one of five girls in her class with the same name. And for those of you who watch Friends, Sandrine is not an option!