Here She Is!!

Referral Day

Today is referral day. The agency sent over a profile of a beautiful little girl with her medical information. Her birthday is October 11, 2006. That is just 5 days before Landon was born. She has a cleft lip/palate and is otherwise very healthy. She lives with a foster family, which is wonderful. There is a good chance her lip will be repaired before she comes home and it may already be repaired. These picture are of her at 6 months old. She definitely has our chubby cheeks. We are now deciding whether or not to accept the referral. Unfortunately I can't add exclamation marks on my blog to show how excited we are.

Missed the Call!

Yesterday afternoon the agency called and we didn't hear the phone ring. We had a plumbing disaster in our house and were busy mopping and cleaning up. Stefani said she had a little girl she wanted to talk to us about. By the time I called her back, she was gone for the day. I can't believe I missed it. So now I am anxiously waiting to hear something. I can't believe we are finally seeing our daughter's picture. It is so surreal.

August 2007

Referrals are close!

Yesterday the adoption agency called and they have two little girls they want us to look at. One was born in April 2006 and one was born in May 2006. They both have cleft lip/palates. The agency has to translate their histories and tomorrow we should get that information and pictures. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Hopefully one of these two girls will be our daughter. I can't believe how quickly everything is happening. Now I am going to go to bed and try to get some sleep.

Special Needs List

Last night Derek and I went through our list of special needs we would and wouldn't accept. It was much harder than we thought it would be. When you have a child biologically you don't choose what physical struggles they may or may not have. You love your children no matter what type of disabilities they may be born with. So saying we wouldn't accept a certain type of disability was really tough, like you are turning away from so many wonderful children. We should know in the next couple of weeks whether or not we are matched!

Our Journey Begins!

I am so excited that our adoption adventure is finally beginning! Derek and I have decided to adopt a special needs child from China instead of doing a traditional China adoption. To adopt traditionally, it would be about 2.5 years before we get our daughter home. Adopting a waiting child means she will probably be home next summer! Special needs in China are not like special needs here in America. The majority of them are cleft lip/palate and other minor correctable conditions. Our agency has told us that because of our experience with our two preemie sons that we are quite eligible for a waiting child. About every three months our agency gets a group of about 30 kids that need homes. They have many more families than children now because lots of families like us are switching over from traditional because of the long wait period. As I understand it, they will send each family a few profiles of children waiting and ask them if they are interested in those particular children. The families respond and of course they end up with more than one family for each child. The agency then decides which family is best suited for that particular child. The next list comes out this month. The agency said that if we don't find our child on this list, we will for sure find her in November. It would be okay if we don't find her this month. We can't submit our paperwork until October anyway. China's new regulations state that you cannot have a child under the age of 1 at the time of your dossier submission. Since our sweet little Landon won't be 1 until October 16, we have to wait until then anyway. Once we send our dossier off to China in October or November, it will be about 8-9 months until we travel. We are hoping to adopt a little girl somewhere around Landon's age. We are glad that our children will be so close in age. I have posted pictures of our kids when they were born and current pictures. I will post pictures of our daughter as soon as we get our referral!