2 Months Since...

It's been 2 months since we've seen Tanje's sweet face for the 1st time. By this time after Savannah's referral, we were in China, hardly able to sleep because of all the excitement. And that felt like forever. This time around, we may be halfway, a third of the way, a quarter of the way, ??? between referral and THE BIG DAY! Anybody know where I can buy a crystal ball out there? Hmm... wonder what the cost would be... Somewhere in the neighbourhood of oh, say, a jillion bucks?  An enterprising inventor could make a mint, no doubt!

Here's the second of the 2 latest photos the agency was kind enough to send us. She's gotta be teething, for sure! Hope she's got some nice chewy things to chomp on over there!

What if? Is Tanje part of the Group of 7?

Another intriguing, verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry, intriguing development today: seems we might have found a photo of Tanje at one month of age. Someone who adopted through the same agency and same orphanage we did said her best friend also did same, in November 2009.  She had many photos of the orphanage, including two her friend shared, of a group of seven newborns. Since Tanje would have been there by the end of October 2009, pretty much since birth (so we're told), it's certainly possible that she's in that photo. And...... we think she is!

Out of respect for this unknown little one, we won't post her (or his?) photo, but the resemblance to Tanje  is remarkable: same lips, philtrum (go look that one up in your dictionary! and nope, you can't cheat by checking on the MS Word thesaurus. Nice try, but y'ain't gonna find it there!), very similar nose and eyebrows. Her eyes are closed, and I had to photoshop and fiddle with the photo a bit to clean it up. But I'm over 90% certain this little bundle, at the end of a row of 3 babes sharing the same blanket, head to head with another row of 3 and a 7th babe at the end, is our little Tanje.  Way cool!

Another Pleasant Surprise!

We just got this photo late last week, unexpectedly!  Tanje is at her health assessment appointment, one of the next necessary steps towards immigration.  She sure looks happy and healthy - hope the lab tests will confirm the same! We're told that piece will take a few weeks.  Guess she must be teething: both photos show her with her fingers in her mouth!  Unfun!

I've started drafting our packing list for the trip, and will gather things like medications and small clothes. Hard to say exactly what size she'll need: it all depends on when we travel. Luckily, we have Sassy's old list, and it was pretty bang-on, so not much to add or delete this time around!

Here's another photo of our beloved little peanut! Wonder what she did today.  We just found out today that Viet Nam is not going to be accepting new families into its program for a bit, as they are ratifying the Hague agreement (international conventions relating to adoption). We will be 'grandfathered' in, but don't know whether or not this will translate into a delay. Time will tell! 
 Meanwhile, I got Tanje a nice Canada T shirt, and we're in the process of kicking (gently, gently!) Savannah out of the nursery (ok, ok, it's much gentler than that!), so Tanje's nest will be ready. And a fine nest it will be, fit for our precious new arrival!

A Feeling of Progress

Yesterday, I got the very strong feeling a few times during the day that something had moved forward with us getting closer to finally meeting our little chickie. I'd gotten a similar feeling for Savannah around the time her Chinese mother might have discovered she was expecting her. Could our paperwork have hopped from one crucial desk to another? Could we have reached an unknown milestone? Don't know! Just know that I felt encouraged and somehow closer.

I got an amazing email a this week, from a very nice Sudbury area family we'd met when we started with Children's Bridge. They'd completed their homestudy, and were about 6 months ahead of us in the process of getting their file to China. They adopted a little one 2 years before we did, and her birthday is the same day as Savannah's, 2 years before to the day! They've since gone to Vietnam in March of this year, adopting an adorable little boy. His birthday is one day before Tanje's, same year! How about that?! He was referred at the age of 1 month, and adopted less than 5 months later. 

CB is telling us the wait time between referral and invitation to travel is now 5 1/2 months, which would mean if things stay the way they are, we might travel 6 months from referral, taking us to January 2011. The kink in this is that Vietnam is currently ratifying The Hague agreement (relating to rules around adoption), so that may slow us down. We'll just see how accurate my positive vibe was!

Our Lovely Tanje

Our lovely little Tanje is 91/2 months already! We sure hope we can get more photos before long, as she's probably already changed so much (the photo above came with her referral information). We sure do think about her a lot, andwhen I do I get a warm feeling in my chest, right where she'll rest her little head when I finally get to rock her and comfort her!

Yesterday, Savannah jumped onto her new trampoline, and immediately said "partager avec Tanje!". She's planning to share it with her little sister! We're preparing Savannah a new room so she can leave her crib for her petite soeur. And she picked out a 'tat' (blanket) especially for her (prob'ly so Tanje doesn't steal hers...).  Wonder if she has one now, or another little comfort object...