This is my first entry to what I hope will be a long list of blog posts relating to my child's adoption from China. I have mentioned this on my Myspace blog occasionally, but I hope to make this blog solely on the journey to my daughter. This year life has taken me on a roller coaster of unbelievable ups and downs. But, that is what it is all about. We started the year wondering if the baby we wished to adopt for the past two and a half years would ever join our family. Waiting times were increasing and to date they are over three years now for a baby in China. Because of this, my husband and I made the most difficult decision to end our wait and pull out of the program completely. We contacted our adoption agency and told them that since our paperwork had been updated once already, we would stick it out until the end of the year and then pull out if a baby was not found within this year. The very next day I had a referral for a beautiful 10 month old girl! We were astonished, surprised and elated, but nothing prepared us though for what came next. Our agency told us that this child's file had been locked in for a period of 48 hours, which we would have to decide if we would accept the referral. It only took us a day to decide that. We were then told that it would take 6-8 weeks for preapproval of our adoption application and we got it it two weeks later. A formal letter of acceptance would follow from the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) in several weeks which came 9 days later and permission to travel three weeks later, which was yesterday. What was meant to happen in the course of several more months was completed in less than 30 days. It must have been meant to be. We feel very blessed that this little baby will finally be a part of our family. I have thought about this moment for the past two and a half years. We are so happy that I will be seeing my little one soon. I wish it was tomorrow, but I know that things take time to plan. We have decided to travel to China with our two girls and they are very excited to pick up their little sister with us. It will be a long, grueling trip but hopefully they will be able to sleep on the plane. I am praying the we have enough space around us to stretch out. Keep your fingers crossed for us! I will keep you all posted on how it goes!
