And our village continues to grow...

(I'll get to the title later)

Well Magpie, another week down, how many more to go?

First, an update on things in China. The CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) continues to move at near warp speed in processing Dossiers in the Review Room. You know, the place where dossiers go to grow old and get dusty. During the last 109 days, they processed exactly 1 month of files. This means all of those families are now out of the place known as the review room and are currently mingling outside the matching room.

Peering through the blinds, around the corners, ears pressed against drinking glasses, like the press on the white house lawn. All waiting, anxiously, with literally tons of other families who have been out of review and waiting to be matched with their child. Currently, families with Dossiers dated from November 8, 2005 (YES that's 2005) to April 30, 2006 are now mingling and passing tips back in forth in the hallway outside the matching room.

Where are your Dad and I? We're in the Review room, along with at least May and likely in some cases part of June. When will we get out of review and go mingle in the packed hallway? hmmmmm, well, we might have a better shot of guessing that, than when we'll be matched. I'm guessing, somewhere between 30 days and 100!

Other news?

I had dinner tonight (first bite of food in 48 hours, my throat was too sore to eat for the last 2 days! yuck) with a woman named Brigit, who hails on our blog roll at Journey to Katy. She leaves in just a few days for China to meet her daughter. She lives 'just down the street' and she will be in the same travel group to China as Sam, the person I met for lunch a couple weeks ago. Brigit is one cool character and like so many on this journey we continue to meet, she gets it. She gets the heartache that life can be, she gets the shame and struggle that infertility can be, she gets the challenges of adoption, the balance of cultures, she's willing to share details of her life and to listen and care while you share yours... the list goes on. Literally, I think it took us an hour to order dinner! We chatted a long time and in the end, I hope she walked away thinking the same as I did, that I found another great person, someone to connect with, a friend. Hard to believe had 2 connections before today, she is in the travel group of Sam who's literally a few miles from us and, she is the friend of my sister in laws friend. The world is NOT all that big after all.

She is like so many who we've become closer to as a result of the adoption, old friends, new friends, family, it's all the same. We continue on this journey to meet incredible people, yet another reason that I'm thankful for the road we're on. No, it's not always been easy, but in every challenge there is at least one thing positive to take away. It's put us in touch with so much, our past, our present, our future, our deepest thoughts, our highest highs and lowest lows, it's allowed us to heal, to grow, to live, it's given us more courage to reach out and enlarge our village.

Our journey to you Magpie is long and lonely at times, but, it gives us so much we would never have had if it were not for waiting for you. We can't wait to see you the first time, but for now, we pass the time by learning to let go of the things that bring us down and making the most of what life has to offer.

(in this post are 2 hidden wishes for you Magpie... I'll blog on those later)