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We look forward hearing from you there!!!! The most current information is on the "Back Home" page.
BE SURE TO SIGN THE GUEST BOOK - we read often. Its good to hear from you! WE'RE HOME!!! A DAY LATE, BUT HOME!!!! Saturday 9:00pm Thanks to Kevin Noble (trusted HMMA co-employee) for dropping us off at the airport! He's picking us up too, right Kev?! :-)
In China when a baby is abandoned, the police put an ad in the newspaper with the picture of the baby describing where and when they were found. The hope is that the birth family will come forward and claim their children. Most are not claimed. This is part of the reason why babies are rarely adopted that are less than 8 months old. The officials have to give the birth parents time to come forward and claim their children. They really do want the families to be reunited. Sadly, most babies remain as orphans and some are adopted to local Chinese people and some are adopted internationally. We are fortunate to be able to have Abigail join our lives. This is her finding ad, that a very good adopted father found. He does this for a living, locating finding ads. The picture is quite grainy since it came from a newspaper, but will be the only picture we will have from her early life. Her referral picture was taken when she was six month old. The finding ad picture was taken when she was just a couple of weeks old.
June 1, 2006---Here is a picture of the Travel Approval that we received in the mail. We picked up our CASH from the bank and have ordered our plane tickets. Still LOTS of money going out the door and no baby to show for it. Faith............
We have Travel Approval and an consulate appointment!!!! We leave June 9th and return on June 22nd!!!! We have a name!!!! Abigail Jia Xing Coburn May 13, 2006--Some of you are wondering what news there is since we got our referral. There's nothing much to report right now. If you check out the F.A.Q. link to the left you'll see the steps we have to go through next. We have sent for our Visa and we sent a care package to Abigail's foster home. (here's a picture of what was in the package)
We have a baby!!!!!! Name: Qi Jia Xing
15 lbs.---on January 9th!!!!!!! That means she's much larger now. Most Recent size information:----69 cm long, 9.1 kg (about 20 pounds!!), 45 cm head cir., 44.5 cm chest cir., 12 cm foot lenght. She has one bottom tooth!
We are Chris and Jeanne Coburn and we are on a special journey. We are in the process of adopting our first child from China. It has been a long and arduous journey to get here. We first spent 3 and 1/2 years in fertility treatments to no avail. Now we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby from China. Little did we know when we got married that we would find our daughter half way around the world. April 26, 2006----the stork has landed on U.S. soil!!!According to our DHL tracking number, our paperwork and picture of our baby is currently at the DHL facility in San Francisco. It will be on it's way to our agency today/tonight and hopefully we'll hear from them tomorrow (Thursday) or it could be Friday depending on how long it takes to process through customs. Once our agency recieves it, the China program director will call us with the details of what she can read (the documents will be written in Mandarin). She'll give us the height, weight, age, etc. and will scan a copy of the picture and e-mail it to us. Chris will come home and we'll open the picture and gaze at her. Then we'll post her picture here and announce to the world. The paperwork will be copied and the copies will go to a translator and the originals will come to us next day air. Then we'll run over to our neighbor's house, Ping, who is Chinese and she will translate for us our own version. A few days later we'll receive the official translation. April 25, 2006-----It's official!!!!! The CCAA (chinese govt. agency dealing with adoptions)has updated their web site!! "The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before June 6, 2005." Our registration date is June 2nd!! We should hear about our baby in the next couple of days!! We're doing a happy dance!! April 21, 2006-----Stork alert! The elusive finish line to this whole process is finally not moving away from us the closer we get. It has stopped moving and we are about to cross it. Word in the adoption community is that referrals will be out next week sometime. (probably mid to late week---maybe even the following week). We really and truly SHOULD be in this next batch. Keep this site bookmarked and check back often. You'll hear us shouting from the mountain tops when the referral (picture) comes in. April 7, 2006---A Word about the wait...... Referrals (a selected baby with a picture, name and location) are sent out from China according to the order in which the adoptive parent's paper work arrives and is logged in in China. Our paperwork was sent to China on May 16, 2005. Our Log In Date is June 2, 2005. When we sent our paper work to China last May, the wait time to a referral was approximately 6 months. Since May of last year, the wait time as been extended until about 12 months. Prior to January 2006, the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs), the agency responsible for matching the babies to families, was matching whole month log in dates and sending the referrals out once per month in one big batch. ex: Login dates from January 1, 2005 through January 31, 2005 all received their referrals in the same week in June of 2005. The process was quite predictable. For the past few months the process has become somewhat unpredictable. For instance, people with a February 2005 Login date received their referrals in 2 batches in January 2006. One in the early part of January and one in the latter part of January. Since then it has been stretched even further. The past 3 months have had batches of referrals that included 13 days of logins, then 5 days of logins and then 3 days of logins. The batch that was most recently released included login dates through May 30, 2005. Our login date is June 2, 2005. Theoretically, we SHOULD be next up. HOWEVER, there are rumors floating that the next batch to be referred would only include logins through May 31, 2005. In that case we would not be up next. I hope that answers some quiestions about what is happeneing. There is nothing we can do to speed up the process. It has been a very frustrating past 6 months. The closer we have gotten, the slower things have gone. We are trying to be patient, but want our baby here before we get old. Keep checking back. We'll notify you when we know something. March 7th---As we patiently await the arrival of our new little bambino, we find joy in the small things in our life and appreciate them. We have a great home, great family, great pets and love each other very much. Today was a great day! Today was the day I finally got to pick up the FREE Mary Kay Grand Prix that we earned back in December. February 24th---The rumor is that the dossiers logged in prior to May 25th will be receiving their referrals next week. Our Log In Date is June 3rd, so we will not be in this next batch. That's the bad news. The good news is that we will DEFINITELY be in the following batch which will probably be sent out by the beginning of April. It's frustrating to wait. We have done all we can do. All there is left to do is wait and pray. Chris and I have painted the baby's dresser and I found a rocker at a consignment store for $35. The baby room is starting to take more shape. We'll post pictures when we finish. Check back often. January 31st--"Are we there yet?" "No" As we PATIENTLY wait for our baby girl, please know that we will send word to you AS SOON AS WE KNOW anything. Please refrain from asking us what we've heard. If we haven't told you and nothing on this page has changed, that means we've heard nothing. No one is more anxious to get our baby girl here than we are. There is nothing we can do to speed up the process but pray. If you would like to know why it is taking so long, please read the F.A.Q. page. Our best guess is we'll get a picture and description at the beginning of March or the beginning of April. Thanks for your understanding.
We can be reached at jeannecoburn@mchsi.com and chriscoburn@mchsi.com
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Christmas Pics 2006
Thanks to Kevin Noble (trusted HMMA co-employee) for dropping us off at the airport! He's picking us up too, right Kev?! :-)
We also sent our acceptance letter to China. Right now we are waiting for travel approval from China. We should receive that before the end of the month and then we will know exactly when we are traveling. Our best estimate is mid-June. We're still on cloud nine and we're anxious to get to China to get our beautiful baby. We're beginning to think about packing. We have a 44 pound weight limit per person. That's 26 pounds less than what the limit is in the U.S. It's time to get really creative. Most people say we will be able to buy what we need for the baby at stores in China. We've got to contact the bank to get brand new $100 bills to take to China. The orphanage donation is $3,000 (all in $100 cash) and we'll need to take about $3,000 more for in country spending of food, hotel, shopping, etc. The nursery is about 95% finished. I've got to put the things on the walls (yes, I know what I'm putting up) and we need to get a few more things. We're very excited but the whole thing seems quite surreal. I think it will really sink in when she's in our arms.
New Pictures!!!!!!!Currently in foster care in the Hubei province (that's a very good thing!). Has been there since 2 days after birth (that's a very good thing, too). Jia Xing (pronounced like "joshing") means very good cheerful. We've learned a little bit more. She was abandonded in a town called Hengche at what can best be described as a food co-op/grain holding facility on the door steps. She was wearing yellow underwear and wrapped in a pillow towel. She was just 2 days old. Everything we can tell about her report indicates she has been a very happy and healthy baby with lots of expressions and interactions with others. She has been well cared for in her foster family. 
Here's a picture of the FedEx guy delivering the referral paperwork.
