Happy 13th Birthday Shayla!!

Today is Shayla's 13th Birthday.

I seriously can't believe she is 13 already - Shayla is our first niece and is soooo special to me(us). I just enjoy everything about her and think she is such a beatiful, smart, caring and truly thoughtful person and she is so excited about Mhyia coming. In fact Shayla is one of the only people who consistenly ask us about Mhyia and how much longer it will be etc...

Anyways I just want to wish her a very Happy 13th Birthday and I hope that she has an amazing 1st day as a teenager!! We LOVE you sooo much Shayla xo

April Referrals

Well it is now April and referrals have started arriving for families up to and including April 17th, 2006. That is another 6 days this month. If China does continue to do approx the same babies as they have been for the past year or so then we might have a referral by the middle of next year (by the end for sure). Now granted this all depends on "if" they continue. Finger crossed!!! Some of the babies are as young as 6 months old which is sooooo amazing - a healthy baby girl is what is most important to me but to have as young as a baby as possible would be a dream come true!

To think that there is actually a light at the end of the tunnel is soooo AMAZING. It has been only getting longer for so long that it isn't something Mike and I talk about anymore, I have packed away all Mhyia's stuff etc... By the end of the year I could be starting the nursery, registering for baby items etc... it seems too good to be true so I will just continue to keep my fingers crossed that China keeps up the same pace!

March Referrals!!

Well even though this is only one month it is one of the most exciting referral batches we have had in over 2 years. As I discussed in February the next couple of months should be a good indicator as to what will happen with referrals moving forward. We new we would basically see 1 of 2 things happen 1) China would continue to refer approx the same amount of babies as they have been for the last year or so and 2) China would continue to refer only 2 or 3 days / month. There would be no reason for #1 not to happen and even though it would not technically be a speed up it would seem like a speed up because as you get further and further into 2006 there are less and less people logged in - especially when you factor in the attrition rate.

Well March 1st this months referrals came in and the CCAA have matched up to and including April 11th that is 6 days worth of referrals!!!

As I mentioned the next couple of months will be very interesting - if things continue according to RQ's projections and to what we are thinking China will be able to refer than by the middle of this year we should be well into May 2006. By the end of the year we could be into June or even July!!!

For the first time in almost 3 years we are starting to think we might see a light at the end of the tunnel?? As I said we will have to see how things go over the next couple of months but if they can continue along the same lines of this month I will be VERY happy!!

Fingers crossed!

February Referrals...

Well the CCAA only did 2 days this month (up to and including April 5th) but it actually was a significantly larger amount of babies compared to last month. The next couple of months will truly be a huge indicator as to how things are going to proceed with the CCAA - as we get further and further into 2006 there are fewer and fewer people logged in.
For about the last year and a half the CCAA has referred approx the same number of babies each month. If they continue to do approx the same amount of babies we could see a referral as early as the end of this year (God that would be amazing) but if they decide to start only doing 2-4 DAYS per month then we will know that they are definitely creating this slow down on purpose, and well that is just disgusting! They have created enough of a slow down over the last couple of years and to purposely slow it down even more will be very frustrating. Still only time will tell????

January 29th marked our 40 month LIDversary. I feel like an anniversary is usually something to celebrate and be excited about but this one just gets more depressing with every month.

So many things have happened over the last couple of months and I really am going to try to post some pics and get caught up. Birthdays, Christmas, etc.... I haven't really been into the blog thing or the adoption in general - it is just so hard to get excited about anything to do with it but I am going to make an effort because one day (hopefully sooner than later) Mhyia will be here and I know I will love to look back and see what was happening while we waited.

Way tooooo long and an interesting RQ post!!

Well I seriously can't believe that is has been since October since my last post. That really is ridiculous. I want to keep it up so one day I can look back but it is hard to stay motivated. I tell people that we are adopting but truly it doesn't even feel real, it's just like something we say.

I don't know what to say about the timelines? It is truly a wait and see game, if China would continue to match approx the same amount of babies as the last year or so than it would probably be about 18 more months but it looks like China might be purposely slowing things down even more.

I read an interesting comment on RQ a couple of weeks ago about a group in the States that raises money throughout the year and donates it to the orphanage where their children came from - apparently it is a significant amount (ten thousand +). Anyways apparently this group had discussed giving the money to another charity since China keeps saying that they don't have as many babies etc... so when one of the group members talked to the orphanage director regarding this decision the director said "no, no' no" we have just as many babies as we always have (he even showed them the paper work) it is just that most of them are in foster care now instead of the actual orphanage, he said he counts on that money in his yearly budget. UGH this makes me sooooo angry - WHY??? WHY??? WHY??? Why are they doing this? The wait is getting absolutely ridiculous, unfortunately there isn't anything we can do but wait but it is very sad and very disappointing. This January marked 4 years since we started this process and almost 41 months since our LID, I seriously have nooooo idea how much longer??

Anyways I am going to try to post some of the highlights with pics from the last couple of months, I feel I need to get more into it like I was at the beginning or else it isn't exciting at all.

Rumor Queen's post today.

Today RQ posted some predictions as to the wait ahead of us. She has basically said that 1 of 3 things will happen.

1. China will continue to refer approx the same amount of days as it has been - approx 3/month
2. China will start to refer more days as we get further into the year
3. China will continue to refer approx the same amount of babies/month

RQ put together some approx dates based on the number of days referred according to the number of days before our lid (currently 154 days left for us);

3 days/month = December 2013
4 days/month = January 2013
7 days/month = August 2011
12 days/month = November 2010

She also gave an estimate according to - if China were to continue to refer approx the same amount of babies each month as they have for the past year or so. This would be our best case scenario and one that I do think could be realistic (fingers crossed). It would make sense that they would/could continue to refer the same amount of children each month as they have been but then again with China so who knows???

RQ's prediction for this scenario for us is January 2011 - OMG that would be amazing.

I'm not going to get my hopes up because as we all know China is VERY unpredictable and will do whatever the heck they want. There are just so many less people logged in as we get closer and closer to August 2006 that I can't imagine it not picking up a little but like I said who knows?

Here's hoping that 2010 brings some speed ups and a better year for us all around!!

3 YEARS since our file was logged in with China....

Well what can I say??? Nothing. It has been 3 years, which is approx 2 years longer than it was suppose to be. I could actually handle the 3 years if there weren't 3 more years to go.

I thought about it once during the day and that was it - we didn't celebrate it or really even acknowledge it.

Canada Day BBQ!!

Mike and I decided this year to have a Canada Day BBQ, it was alot of fun. We ended up going out the night before to a friends house which was great but we didn't get home until 3:00am and then had to be up by 8:00am to get things ready (things we should have done the night before lol). Oh well who needs sleep!

Everyone came over an we had a really good time - unfortunately it did start to rain just as Mike started to BBQ but everyone just came in. Mike had also come up with a "Canada Trivia" challenge which everyone seemed to really enjoy.

This was our first big get together as a family since the passing of Mikes brother Kevin. It is still so hard to believe but everyone seemed to have a good time and I know we all thought of him often. Everyone left by 8:00pm which gave us just enough time to clean, pack and get to bed by 11:00pm so that we could be up for 3:30am to head to the airport for our flight to Boston - like I said - who needs sleep!!

I made this cherry cheesecake!

Mike with little Ronin - he is sooo cute!

everyone playing Mike's Canadian trivia!

34 Months....ugh!

Well it has officially been 34 months since our paperwork was sent to China. This month the CCAA referred another 6 days worth of lid's - that takes us up to and including March 20th, 2006. A weird thing happened though - our agency ONLY, also got referrals for March 21st and March 23rd?? We are not sure why or how this happened yet but we'll take it! It was most likely someone sending them out by mistake. I hope to see at least 6 days and even more in the months to come.

I can't believe that there are only 12 groups ahead of us at our agency - what I really can't believe is that it could take up to 3 more years to get through those 12 groups :( I won't let myself believe it though - for some reason I just really do feel that thing will start to look up over the next 6 months or so.

A Sudden and Tragic Loss.

On June 9, 2009 we suffered a very sudden and tragic loss. Mike's brother Kevin passed away after collapsing at work. I am writing this post exactly two weeks later and I still can't believe it is true, it is like a bad dream and we still think he is going to walk through the door at our next BBQ or family event.

Mike's whole family was together on Sat. June 6th for a BBQ at Kevin and Kerith's house. We were celebrating Pat's (Mike's mom) birthday (actual birthday June 9th). It was a great day, everyone was there, the sun was shining etc... it was just a great family get together. On the Sunday Kevin and Kerith had professional family photo's done with their son Ronin. These were Ronin's 6 month photo's and the first and now only professional family photo's they had.

Tuesday morning (Mik'es moms actual birthday) I got a call from my sister-in-law that Kevin had collapsed at work and had been taken to the hospital, to be honest we thought nothing of it, we just assumed that he fainted or hadn't had enough to eat etc... a couple of hours later I got a phone call that I will NEVER forget as long as I live. I was literally hysterical, I couldn't believe the words that Amy had just uttered to me... "Kevin died". I hung up the phone and had to then make the hardest phone call of my life and call Mike and tell him that his brother had died. I am crying as I type this because as I said I still can't believe that it is true. He just turned 36, had a 6 month old baby and a wife that he adored more than anything since they met 6 years ago.

We found out that Kevin's main artery was more than 90% blocked and that is why he collapsed and died. It is so unbelievable, he was 36, healthy (to our knowledge), no history of heart problems and the Dr. told us even his cholesterol was low. It is such a tragic loss.

As you can well imagine the last two weeks have been very hard on us and the family and I thought it would start to get easier but honestly I feel like it is only getting harder. The more time that passes the more it sinks in that we really won't see him again. Mike just keeps saying to me "I can't believe that we won't see him again, I can't believe I won't ever talk to him again".

It is so hard. Kevin, we love you and we miss you so much, RIP.

These were two of the photo's that were taken on Sunday,

their first professional photos together as father and son and together as a family.

33 Month LID Anniversary

Well there isn't much to say when you get to this many months and you know you have probably approx the same amount of months to go. As I mentioned in my last post the CCAA matched 6 days in May - I am truly hoping that things will continue at that pace or even better but as I have found out over the last 3 1/2 years, you can't count on anything with this adoption. I truly can't believe that one day I will probably be posting about our 60th month of waiting - it really does seem soooo ridiculous.

May's Referrals

This month the CCAA referred up to and including March 14th. That is a total of 6 days...yahoo! I think this is great since there has been so much talk about how March is such a huge month etc...

The referrals didn't come until May 20th which is about 2 weeks later than usual (they usually come near the beginning of the month) so it will be interesting to see when the next batch comes? There have been rumors that we could see more referrals in approx 2 weeks (beginning of June) so I am going to keep my fingers crossed for that! I think the scare of the swine flu maybe held things up a little over the past couple of weeks.

This now takes us down to 168 lid's to get to us......this means if they could always do an average of 6 days a month (wishful thinking) we would have approx 28 months left (sep't 2011), if they could bump that to an average of 8 days a month that would give us approx 21 months (Feb 2011). I don't expect to see big numbers like this month all the time but I am hoping once we get past March we will see more consistently bigger numbers (6 or more).

Keep your fingers crossed!!! And congratulations to everyone seeing there babies faces for the first time (check out some of the referrals on Rumor Queen)

The last 2 1/2 months!

Okay so as usual my attempts to upkeep my blog failed. I am just finding it very hard to up keep with it when it seems like something that is sooooo far away and like it isn't even real :(

Anyways I am going to try to cover some of the highlights and lowlights over the last couple or months - I will start with the most recent....

May's referrals:

Well the referrals for May have not yet been released, there have been rumors over the last week or so of China not sending out referrals due to swine flu. Apparently these are just rumors, I was told by our agency that they are sending referrals as usual. Hopefully they will arrive next week and lets hope they do more than 2 days this month. With 174 lid's ahead of us we need to see a heck of a lot more than 2 days/month. There have been alot of rumors about the CCAA trying to speed things up and that we should see a speed up more into the middle of this year - here's hoping!!! I did talk to our agency yesterday and even they told me that the CCAA has told them that they are taking measures to try to speed things up from the current pace - I found this to be encouraging since my agency usually says NOTHING unless they know something!! Fingers crossed!!

LID Anniversary - 32 Months

April 29th marks 32 months since our lid and what do I say - yet another month gone and not one day closer to Mhyia?? I can't even believe that I had to make a "32" month counter - it is quite ridiculous actually. Once we get past 36 months I am hoping we will have less than 36 more months to wait...I can't believe that one day I will probably be making a "60" month counter....SAD...it is just SAD.

Still unemployed..maybe back to school??

Well I am still unemployed which is great if you have lots of money but considering I do NOT it is not fun at all - it is BORING. I have really been thinking alot about what I want to do and what options I have. I went to an information seminar put on through EI and I am looking into possibly taking a one year course in Human Resources - it is a career that I think I would really enjoy and one where I think that there is a lot of growth opportunity etc.. so I will be looking into that over the next couple of weeks!

Easter

This year we went to my moms for dinner on Good Friday which was great! Dinner was awesome, as usual!! It was nice to visit with my parents and we had a great time visiting with my brother and Tiffany too!

For Mikes side we went to Andrew and Kayla's (Mike's brother) for dinner - they have just moved into a new apartment so it was the first time we have all been there - it turned out great!

It was also Shayla's birthday on Easter Sunday - she turned 12 this year!! I can't believe she is 12 years old already, it really does seem like a couple of months ago she was just born! Shayla is my first official niece and she is just so special to me - Love you Shayla - Happy Birthday!

LID Anniversary - 31 months

Well this month actually went right by without me realizing it was the 29th - I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad sign? Anyways 31 months...ugh

March Birthdays

March is a big month in the Dufour family - 3 out of the 5 siblings have a birthday in March!! Lisa, Kevin and Amy. We don't exchange gifts anymore but we do always get together for at least cake and usually some kind of dinner. This year we went to Lisa's house and had a BBQ - I made the cake. It was alot of fun!!

Babysitting Meghan!!

Amy has asked me a couple of times to babysit Meghan which of course I was more than happy to do!! She is sooooo good she is so content and so happy all the time she is truly a joy to be around and of course how can you not love that face...I could just kiss those chubby cheeks all day!! She is approx 5 months here!

she just loves her hippo!!

Sophie in hand....already for her walk

look at that face....kissable...just kissable!

LID Anniversary - 30 months

Again not much to say. February 29th marked 30 months since our lid with China. I think in February the CCAA only matched 3 days :(

Ronin's shower - February 28th

Mike and I hosted a baby shower at our house for Kevin (Mike's brother) and Kerith and baby Ronin. I turned out great! I will post pictures for this in a couple of days since I think this post is long enough!! stay tuned!

Officially caught up on posts!!

I have been soooooo bad about posting but I have now finally caught up and I am going to try to keep up. Please look back at the last couple of posts since I actually posted them all this morning!

Also - please comment - even if it is just a HI it makes me feel like I am not only doing this for myself and I like to know who is reading! Thanks

29 Month LID Anniversary

Well 29 months down and approx 31 more to go. The CCAA has finally made it in to March 2006 but only referred 2 days. March is a big month but hopefully things will get better than 2 days. We need them to keep an average of 6 days a month for us to keep a referral time of August 2011.

The CCAA increased their in country fee to $5000 from $3000 and there are rumors that this will help to speed things up a little - here's hoping!!!

A gift I wanted to mention.

For Christmas Mike and I got lots of great things but we did receive one gift that was very special to me. As you all know My sister-in-law and her husband had our niece in October and my brother-in-law and his wife had our nephew in December right before Christmas.

This would be the first Christmas that everyone in Mike's family has children (except us) and don't get me wrong I LOVE having all the babies around and I am VERY happy for all of them but I was a little nervous about Christmas Day and how it would effect me being there with everyone and their children when this is what Mike and I have been also wanting for the last 10 years. We were now the only couple with no children although Mike and I started trying before most of these couples had even met.

Anyways when we got to Lisa's everyone was handing out their gifts to all the kids and Mikes mom handed me a box and said "I know it is still quite a while away but I saw this and had to get it for you" I took the box and opened it and it was a ladybug outfit for Mhyia - I never find ladybug stuff and Mike's mom knows how I watch for it. I LOVED it , it was sooo cute - totally something I would pick out. I think I loved the fact that she thought about us/Mhyia even more than the gift itself!! Mike's family very rarely asks how things are going etc... and it was nice to know that they are thinking about it even though they don't often bring it up! Anyways here are a couple of picks of it - I LOVE it!!!

Mike got me the Great Wall of China book ends

Happy New Year!! - here's hoping that 2009 is great!

Well it has been a crazy year. Lots of highs, lots of lows.

At the beginning of the year I got a great job that I love now it looks like that will be ending in January.

At the beginning of the year we were telling people we still had 3 years to wait for a referral and it is now 12 months later and we still have approx 3 years to wait.

My year has had its ups too - we have a new niece and a new nephew and even though my job is ending in Jan it has been a great year and I have made some amazing friends. All in all 2008 was a pretty good year but I am definitely looking forward to 2009 and what it will hold in store for us.

28 month LID Anniversary

December 29th marked 28 months of waiting since our LID. I really can't wait for the months to wait are less than the months we've waited :(

Christmas 2009!

Well this year I have almost 2 weeks off during Christmas which is sooooo nice!

For Christmas we go to my moms Christmas Eve go to church, have fun, talk, play games etc.. we stay over night and get up in the morning and open gifts etc.. and then eat a late lunch around 2pm - this works out perfectly because it allows us time to get packed get home, pack the car again and get to Lisa's for Mike's family dinner!

Christmas was great - I love being around all of our family, the older you get the more you just cherish those times and realize that your family is truly the most important thing you have.

This year with Mikes family we decided not to by gifts for each other and instead we adopted a couple of families through a local charity organization. We all put money in and got them toys, clothes, jackets, boots, and food gift certificates it was nice to be able to help others - it gave us all a nice warm and fuzzy feeling!

Christmas day was also the first time we actually got to see Ronin and hold him - he is such a little peanut - what a true gift!

Christmas morning getting ready to open gifts!

Meeting baby Ronin for the first time!

The happy new family - Ronin's first Christmas!

Landyn wants to see his new cousin too..

You may remember Meghan, our niece that was born Oct 15th - here she is now! Also her first Christmas! She has affectionately been nicknamed "Chubberella" she is sooooo freaking cute I could just eat her! - Mike and I seriously can not get enough of her!!

The two newest cousins!!

Emma - and the sweater that she wanted - I love it when you get something they love!!

Shayla and Meghan! Our oldest niece and youngest niece

Last but not least me and Meghan she is wearing a sleeper that says I love my Auntie - how appropriate!!

My job situation

As many of you know this time last year I was looking for work. Right after Christmas I got the job I currently have and I LOVE it!!! It is only a one year mat leave but it is in a field that I love and at a company I have always wanted to work at - I had hoped that something would come up and I would be able to stay. Unfortunately this week we heard from the lady on mat leave and she plans on returning at the end of Jan - because of the economy etc... they are not going to be able to keep me on at this time :(

As of Jan 30th I will once again be unemployed :( :(