Just Another Wednesday Post....

Hello, Hello, Hello Everyone!!! I hope this blog finds you all doing well. The last few weeks have been kind of crazy since we were not able to visit with ‘Baby C’…well I have exciting news!!! On Monday we started our visits with our Little Miss!! Monday we visited for about 2 hours at the hospital because really two weeks of being told “tomorrow she’ll be back at the orphanage” was enough!! While at our visit we were informed that our girl would be headed back to orphanage in the morning and we would be visiting there tomorrow. So for the least 3 days we have been falling so in love with our little girl!! I love my boys more then anything but there is something so magical about getting to add this little lady to our family. She is beautiful, sweet and silly. Tomorrow we have court and we officially announce her name as well post her picture!! Right now we are trying to keep everything low key but tomorrow once we pass court I will post away!!! So what’s next you may ask….Well Saturday we fly home to get our boys back in the school routine and then I head back the following Saturday to finish up the process and bring our girl home!! Hopefully by Labor Day weekend we will be home with our daughter and enjoying our family of 5!! :)) 

So now that I’ve brought you up to speed I’ve got a quick little fundraiser for you….About a week ago I was asked by a sweet young adoption advocate if we needed any more funding and I thought we were good. BUT then I realized when I calculated our funding I left out some of the fees (i.e. Visa and medical appointment) we have to pay when I come back to finish our paperwork to bring ‘Baby C’ home. So we are about $500 dollar short….This same advocate has offered up doing a small matching grant to help us get to being totally funded….So here is the fundraiser: For every $5 you donate your name will be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card of the winners choice!!  We are running this fundraiser between tonight and Sunday evening OR once we reach $150…whichever comes first!! If you donate please comment here OR on Facebook (once I post it there) and I'll add your name to the drawing!! Here's the link to donate: http://reecesrainbow.org/70626/sponsorchellson-2

I hope you all are having a wonderful week!! 

Love,

Melissa

Time for an update

Happy Saturday Everyone!!! I hope this post finds you all doing well. I want to first apologize for my lack of blogging…Things have been a little crazy and sitting and writing hasn’t come to me like it did in our last adoption travels. In my last post I wrote about an Instagram auction and the fact that we have got our travel date. So as you can guess we are currently in country finalizing the process of adopting Baby ‘C’…We got here on the 23rd of July and have been going ever since. We had our appointment to get her referral on the 24th, which went well, and went back to pick up the referral on the 25th. Unfortunately we weren’t able to go over to the orphanage that afternoon because the director was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until Monday…so we played tourist all weekend (I’ll post pictures below) with another family and had so much fun!! Monday came and we were picked up around noon and went off to the notary office to have some papers made up and then headed to the orphanage. Here’s where it gets a little wild….When we arrived at the orphanage we were told we’d be going over to the hospital since Baby ‘C’ had been taken there that morning for “rash” caused by her dermatitis/eczema. Before we went to the hospital we met with the director, social worker and our facilitator…we were given all her medical information which overall is good. She’s had heart surgery, has dermatitis/eczema, and few other minor needs….she weighs around 17lbs. and has some serious meat on her bones. Which makes this mommy’s heart happy. After we found out all the family and medical history we were whisked off to the hospital to meet her. Y’all (yes, I’m using my southern twang here…haha) we are soo in love with this girl it’s not even funny!!! They brought her our and she was more amazing then I could have ever imagined!!! She has SUPER blonde hair, and big blue eyes and just beautiful. We cuddled with her for about 10/15 minutes before we had to give her back to the nurse and we gave the absolute YES we are for sure adopting her!!! The only downer to all of this is we can not visit until she is out of the hospital…she will be back to the orphanage sometime this weekend and we’ll hopefully get the go ahead to visit monday morning. :)) Over the last week we’ve been exploring and enjoying this amazing city 2 of our 3 children are from and I am falling more in love with this place then I did in our first adoption. Thursday we met with our facilitator to sign some papers and were given a run down of what was going on….our facilitator is trying to get the same judge we had for our first adoption BUT she is going on Vacation on August 11th….so this means if she says yes we could have court as early as FRIDAY!!!! The only iffy part is the paperwork they submit to the Ministry or Adoption (I’m not totally sure if that’s what it’s called…but it works(: ) typically takes TWO weeks to finish…IF we have court friday we would need the Ministry to finish our papers in ONE WEEK AND TWO DAYS!!!!! This would make us the fastest adoption ever to be done here in this city and would cut a HUGE amount of time off our finalization process!! So, if you have a second please say a prayer, send good vibes, think happy thoughts or whatever you may do to allow this to all happen fast and easy!! We’d be forever grateful and thankful if this played out the way we’ve been told. 

So now you’re all caught up to speed!!! Once we start visiting I’ll have more to write about and once we find out some news I’ll update!! We hope you all have a fabulous weekend!!! 

Love,

Melissa

Pictures from our outings...

The remaining encampment from the recent revolution.

 One our favorite places to eat.

 The entrance to the SCARIEST elevator ride I've ever taken at our first apartment.

 Our favorite crepe place.

 "Lady on a Stick" as she is know around here..

 St. Andrews Cathedral...so beautiful!!