I know we can't wait to get our son home! It is a shame he had to wait just about 14 years to find a Mama and a Baba. And there are many more"future sons" out there waiting for theirs. Could a little boy be in your future??
The Family
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Happy Easter!
Here at our home today we are celebrating Easter by counting our blessings! Oh sure, there were chocolate bunnies in the baskets and an Easter egg hunt in the front yard, but we are trying today to really focus and be thankful for all that God has given us. Especially for a risen Savior who has given us the greatest blessing of all-- the hope of a life eternal with Him!
We are also celebrating the fact that soon I will be travelling back to China to bring our long awaited son HOME! When I mentioned to the children that next year at Easter our 6th side chair will be filled at our table they broke out into a chorus of "Yeah! Yeah!" They want him here as much as Tim and I do.
And additionally we are celebrating the gift of life with another different kind of addition to our family.....
New baby chicks!!!!
We were not expecting to get more chickens, we already have 20! But our sweet friend Vicky was giving them away to all the children after church today, so we have 5 more! Tim sweetly set up the brooder pen, lamp and baby chick waterer in the garage again and they have settled in well.
So, we are hoping that everyone is enjoying their Easter day as much as we have! Take a listen and watch the video to this great song below-- I Will Rise by Chris Tomlin. I heard it on the way to church today and thought it was the perfect Easter song. Enjoy!
We are also celebrating the fact that soon I will be travelling back to China to bring our long awaited son HOME! When I mentioned to the children that next year at Easter our 6th side chair will be filled at our table they broke out into a chorus of "Yeah! Yeah!" They want him here as much as Tim and I do.
And additionally we are celebrating the gift of life with another different kind of addition to our family.....
We were not expecting to get more chickens, we already have 20! But our sweet friend Vicky was giving them away to all the children after church today, so we have 5 more! Tim sweetly set up the brooder pen, lamp and baby chick waterer in the garage again and they have settled in well.
So, we are hoping that everyone is enjoying their Easter day as much as we have! Take a listen and watch the video to this great song below-- I Will Rise by Chris Tomlin. I heard it on the way to church today and thought it was the perfect Easter song. Enjoy!
Friday, April 22, 2011
An Easter Blessing!
Well Hallelujah! We finally got what we needed!
I made a call to our local congressman this past week to enlist his aid in getting our son. I also called in favors to a few contacts we have had since this adoption began. And somehow, finally today, we got the letter we needed from our STATE health department to give to the CDC!!
Our agency called us today to tell me that they had it and were sending it on to the CDC and to the consulate. Hopefully it will get reviewed and approved quickly this next week and the consulate will contact our agency so that we can set up our appointment with them. This will then determine our travel dates. The consulate has said that they will work with us given that our situation is know well known throughout the powers-that-be in Guangzhou! It seems like everyone has heard about what has happened. Even random strangers I met in Guangzhou two days after all this happened knew of our son testing positive for TB and having to stay in China! Incredible.
SO the consulate will try to squeeze us in wherever they can so we can "Git-R-Done!!" as Tim would say, and get our son home where he belongs!
With any luck I will be flying the friendly skies in two weeks or so, and then, BIG PARTY at the Rowe home!
Thanks to everyone for all the prayers. Please keep praying that they WILL squeeze us in like we are hoping, and that of course I might travel safely there to get him and that both of us will get home safely too.
Just glad to be moving along now. Finally!
Happy Easter! Take time this weekend to remember all your family's blessings. I know we will!
I made a call to our local congressman this past week to enlist his aid in getting our son. I also called in favors to a few contacts we have had since this adoption began. And somehow, finally today, we got the letter we needed from our STATE health department to give to the CDC!!
Our agency called us today to tell me that they had it and were sending it on to the CDC and to the consulate. Hopefully it will get reviewed and approved quickly this next week and the consulate will contact our agency so that we can set up our appointment with them. This will then determine our travel dates. The consulate has said that they will work with us given that our situation is know well known throughout the powers-that-be in Guangzhou! It seems like everyone has heard about what has happened. Even random strangers I met in Guangzhou two days after all this happened knew of our son testing positive for TB and having to stay in China! Incredible.
SO the consulate will try to squeeze us in wherever they can so we can "Git-R-Done!!" as Tim would say, and get our son home where he belongs!
With any luck I will be flying the friendly skies in two weeks or so, and then, BIG PARTY at the Rowe home!
Thanks to everyone for all the prayers. Please keep praying that they WILL squeeze us in like we are hoping, and that of course I might travel safely there to get him and that both of us will get home safely too.
Just glad to be moving along now. Finally!
Happy Easter! Take time this weekend to remember all your family's blessings. I know we will!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Still Waiting
Good gracious! I never would have imagined that on April 16th I would STILL be saying that we are continuing to wait to bring our son home!!
As of this past week, I submitted to our agency yet another letter, this time from the local health department, stating that they are willing to treat Gideon's TB once he arrives home. The CDC was not happy with our doctor's letter, even though the waiver only required a letter from a physician OR health department stating that they would be responsible for his treatment, so I set out to get them what they wanted and finally succeeded on Friday.
Of course. Friday. Now it is the weekend, again, and we still wait.
Now, our agency tells us that HOPEFULLY the CDC will accept our letter because what they really want is a letter from the state health department, not the local one. Oh my goodness, now I really am going to tear my hair out.
I mean come on! I think we have every right to be getting frustrated now. He has been being treated for non-active TB since Feb 1st, the TB specialist for NC has signed off that she will treat him, the local health department has signed off that they will treat him, his sputum tests and cultures are both negative, what more do they want???
Again, I beg of you all, please pray for Gideon and for our family. Pray specifically that he can come home SOON. We want him here, where he belongs, with his family who is longing for him to be home. I can't even imagine what he is feeling or thinking, and I desperately want to see him again so he knows he is loved and not forgotten. I can't wait for my husband to meet him, and for our other children to meet their new brother. Poor Tim can't wait for him to be home. He said to me the other day that he feels like he is missing out on valuable time with his new son. He wants him home NOW and so do I.
Pray that the CDC will approve this letter that we have sent so that the consulate can schedule our appointment. Pray, pray, pray.
Thank you!
As of this past week, I submitted to our agency yet another letter, this time from the local health department, stating that they are willing to treat Gideon's TB once he arrives home. The CDC was not happy with our doctor's letter, even though the waiver only required a letter from a physician OR health department stating that they would be responsible for his treatment, so I set out to get them what they wanted and finally succeeded on Friday.
Of course. Friday. Now it is the weekend, again, and we still wait.
Now, our agency tells us that HOPEFULLY the CDC will accept our letter because what they really want is a letter from the state health department, not the local one. Oh my goodness, now I really am going to tear my hair out.
I mean come on! I think we have every right to be getting frustrated now. He has been being treated for non-active TB since Feb 1st, the TB specialist for NC has signed off that she will treat him, the local health department has signed off that they will treat him, his sputum tests and cultures are both negative, what more do they want???
Again, I beg of you all, please pray for Gideon and for our family. Pray specifically that he can come home SOON. We want him here, where he belongs, with his family who is longing for him to be home. I can't even imagine what he is feeling or thinking, and I desperately want to see him again so he knows he is loved and not forgotten. I can't wait for my husband to meet him, and for our other children to meet their new brother. Poor Tim can't wait for him to be home. He said to me the other day that he feels like he is missing out on valuable time with his new son. He wants him home NOW and so do I.
Pray that the CDC will approve this letter that we have sent so that the consulate can schedule our appointment. Pray, pray, pray.
Thank you!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Ready to Pull My Hair Out!!!
OH MY WORD! I have never been so frustrated in my life. This whole thing has turned into nothing but a bunch of ridiculousness and bureaucracy. I had really wanted to wait to make another post until we had news that we had gotten our consulate appt and were about to travel. Alas this is not the case. It is more hurry-up-and-wait kind of stuff.
Ok, so here's the deal. Last I posted we were in the process of obtaining our waiver. Well my oh my, that only took WEEKS to do! First the health dept wasn't sure they were going to sign it because they didn't feel they had enough information. Ok, fair enough. So I got them more information. Well then, their doctor was out on vacation. The other person who was there didn't want to sign it without an MD's approval. The TB doctor at the hospital was on rounds that day and not in the office, he was too busy the next day and was conducting some sort of interviews the following day (which would be Friday) according to his nurse, so good luck with getting anything from him. We really needed to get it signed by someone by the end of the week because the CDC was going to be out for a conference the whole next week, and there would be no one there to review our waiver if we got it there past Friday.
So I ended up getting in touch with a pediatric specialist who had been helping us in the case anyway and asked her if she could sign it on the physician side, and speak to the gentleman at the health dept giving him the ok to sign the other portion. No problem, but of course with doctors being busy as they are, this was all going to take awhile.
Well praise God, it FINALLY got signed by all parties and got into the CDC by Friday afternoon after MANY phone calls, faxes, etc. Then-- of course-- another problem. The doctor had not sent a signed letter on official letterhead to send along with the waiver stating that she was going to be responsible for the TB treatment of our son. That took another week to get that sent in, got it in by Fri at 5:30 but guess what, the woman who would need to review all the waiver stuff and put it together to send to the consulate was going on vacation the following Monday! So, 5:30 Fri was too late of course, and our agency told us they would have to see if there would be anyone there that week to review it in her absence. Seriously??!! There is only ONE person in that whole place who could be responsible to put the info together and send it to the consulate?
Fast forward to today, Thursday, and I get a call from our agency. Apparently it got to someone in the CDC for review before going off to the consulate, but now the letter the doctor wrote out, like asked, has been rejected by the CDC because it is not from the health dept! She isn't WITH the health dept!! No one ever said she had to be. She is just the one who will be responsible for keeping up with his reviews and treatment, and it said ANY physician could sign that portion of the waiver and make that statement. This doctor is the HEAD of pediatric infectious diseases in NC and has jurisdiction everywhere in our state for this type of thing. She even has contacts at the CDC whom she spoke with about this case and reviewed info with. Surely they probably assumed she was going to be signing this paper and giving the letter, so what is the hold up??
Just a very frustrated Momma and Daddy on this end trying, TRYING to be patient. But all this craziness and paper chasing has me exhausted. And it seems ridiculous because the CDC has already stated that our son is approved to come over here, this paper is just a formality. I really don't understand the difficulty. It just stresses me out to know that our son is waiting over there, hoping that we are still coming to get him, and that he was told the wait time would be about 6 weeks and it has now been almost 3 mos! It will probably be more that that by the time I get over there to get him. Like Tim says, well maybe he'll be home by Fourth of July!
Seriously though, he is our son, and we want him home. Like, yesterday! Please pray that all this waiting and paper chasing and nonsense can come to an end quickly and we can travel SOON to bring Gideon home. Thank you.
Ok, so here's the deal. Last I posted we were in the process of obtaining our waiver. Well my oh my, that only took WEEKS to do! First the health dept wasn't sure they were going to sign it because they didn't feel they had enough information. Ok, fair enough. So I got them more information. Well then, their doctor was out on vacation. The other person who was there didn't want to sign it without an MD's approval. The TB doctor at the hospital was on rounds that day and not in the office, he was too busy the next day and was conducting some sort of interviews the following day (which would be Friday) according to his nurse, so good luck with getting anything from him. We really needed to get it signed by someone by the end of the week because the CDC was going to be out for a conference the whole next week, and there would be no one there to review our waiver if we got it there past Friday.
So I ended up getting in touch with a pediatric specialist who had been helping us in the case anyway and asked her if she could sign it on the physician side, and speak to the gentleman at the health dept giving him the ok to sign the other portion. No problem, but of course with doctors being busy as they are, this was all going to take awhile.
Well praise God, it FINALLY got signed by all parties and got into the CDC by Friday afternoon after MANY phone calls, faxes, etc. Then-- of course-- another problem. The doctor had not sent a signed letter on official letterhead to send along with the waiver stating that she was going to be responsible for the TB treatment of our son. That took another week to get that sent in, got it in by Fri at 5:30 but guess what, the woman who would need to review all the waiver stuff and put it together to send to the consulate was going on vacation the following Monday! So, 5:30 Fri was too late of course, and our agency told us they would have to see if there would be anyone there that week to review it in her absence. Seriously??!! There is only ONE person in that whole place who could be responsible to put the info together and send it to the consulate?
Fast forward to today, Thursday, and I get a call from our agency. Apparently it got to someone in the CDC for review before going off to the consulate, but now the letter the doctor wrote out, like asked, has been rejected by the CDC because it is not from the health dept! She isn't WITH the health dept!! No one ever said she had to be. She is just the one who will be responsible for keeping up with his reviews and treatment, and it said ANY physician could sign that portion of the waiver and make that statement. This doctor is the HEAD of pediatric infectious diseases in NC and has jurisdiction everywhere in our state for this type of thing. She even has contacts at the CDC whom she spoke with about this case and reviewed info with. Surely they probably assumed she was going to be signing this paper and giving the letter, so what is the hold up??
Just a very frustrated Momma and Daddy on this end trying, TRYING to be patient. But all this craziness and paper chasing has me exhausted. And it seems ridiculous because the CDC has already stated that our son is approved to come over here, this paper is just a formality. I really don't understand the difficulty. It just stresses me out to know that our son is waiting over there, hoping that we are still coming to get him, and that he was told the wait time would be about 6 weeks and it has now been almost 3 mos! It will probably be more that that by the time I get over there to get him. Like Tim says, well maybe he'll be home by Fourth of July!
Seriously though, he is our son, and we want him home. Like, yesterday! Please pray that all this waiting and paper chasing and nonsense can come to an end quickly and we can travel SOON to bring Gideon home. Thank you.
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