Anyway, we decided to start a blog so everyone can follow us as we prep for our journey to China to bring our little lady home. Please bookmark this site and come back often. I will post any of the interesting stuff that happens along the way.
A brief synopsis for those of you who don't know the whole story. Laura and I began the long journey of international adoption at least 5 years ago. When we decided on China, we were told that the average wait time was between 12 - 18 months ("closer to 18" they told us). Well, the Chinese government officially approved our paperwork and we were put into a stack with other families. That was March 2007. For reasons known only to them, the Chinese have REALLY slowed down the healthy child program. So much so that if we were to stay in it and they were to progress at the current rate, we would easily be waiting another 8 - 10 years.
Our agency had recently been approved to be part of the "special needs" program and we were invited to a meeting. I know, I know...the words special needs can sound a little scary. However, it turns out that to the Chinese government, any child that is not "perfect" (physically or mentally) is considered special needs. After lots of conversation, reflection and prayer, we decided to enter into the special needs program. We decided to look for a little girl who had been born with a cleft lip, palate or both. We originally were looking for a child up to age 3, but after we were told by our agency that children up to age 3 were in high demand, we decided to up our age limit to 8 years old, with a plan to look for a child up to 5 years of age.
The way it works is like this. Every month, the CCAA (the China Center for Adoption Affairs) posts a list of all the available children. Apparently, all of the case workers sit by their computers waiting for the list to post and try to find and match kids as fast as possible. Of course this can crash their server. So...you wait until it comes back up. Once you decide on a child, the child gets "locked-in" which means that the child comes off of the list and you have 3 days to decide if you will accept this child. You get pictures and a health record to have examined by a pediatrician experienced in international adoptions. If all is well and you go ahead, you are "matched" and the paperwork begins. If NOT...then the child goes back on the list. You can also choose to be notified of a specific child and THEN decide whether to lock him/her in. The only problem here is that the child may be gone when you go back. Our case worker asked us what we wanted to do...did we want to be notified first or did we want to go ahead and lock her in.
Hmm...interesting. We went home to decide and a thought came into my head. I asked Laura if, after everything we had gone through, we were to have a child matched who met what we were looking for, could she actually see us going "Hmmm....well...I don't know...". Hell no! We told our case worker that if a little girl, up to age 5 with a cleft lip, palate or both were to come up...LOCK HER IN.
That first month, the list came out. After a couple of days, Jessica (our case worker) called and told us there were no matches and she would try again next month. A few days later we got the call...we had been matched with a little girl (age 5) who had been born with a cleft lip and palate. The cleft had been repaired when she was 3. We were on our way.
Her name is Tao Ji Yuan and she has been living at the Childrens' Social Welfare Institute in Guang An City in Sichuan province. Her last name Tao is actually the last name of the policeman who found her. She had been abandoned "near the toll-gate of the Heping to the Linguang entrance of Linshui Country in Guangan City."
This is our daughter.
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