China...2012?

It feels strange to say that we are revving up for another adoption, when really, we've never geared down. We always felt that a precious daughter from China was part of the plan...and we began following that road over five years ago. However, due to some providential detours, in reality the path wound up being much different (and better) than we had initially expected. I have the entire story posted on one of the pages above for anyone interested in reading it. We also made a video documenting the journey of our first adoption, which is posted in the upper right sidebar, "Bringing Home Caleb." In short though, the story began in 2006, involves a surprise pregnancy, then an extended wait in China, followed by an Ethiopian adoption, and still more wait in China...which brings us to present day.

At this point, the wait for a "healthy" baby in China is five+ years and climbing. We actually finished our Chinese dossier and were logged in (put on the wait list), almost three years ago, and it was also three years ago that we finished our Ethiopian paperwork. Our son from Ethiopia has been home for two years now...so you can see how this Chinese wait (which has occurred for a number of reasons and is another post for another day) can be excruciating...especially to those who signed on when the process was approximately 12 months start to finish. However, the Chinese restrictions as to which children are considered healthy are very strict, thus leaving a large group of children with mild special needs, older children, etc...that fall into the "special needs" category for that country. There is such a great need here and these adoptions can occur more quickly, with less wait. Still, it is not something to attempt without giving special consideration to what the reality is, and we wanted to be certain that this was the right path for our family. At this point, we are very comfortable with a mild special needs adoption and we know that whoever this little girl is, she is ours...and perfectly created for our family.

So, here were, about become active once again in the very unpredictable (and extremely amazing and challenging) world of international adoption. I cannot explain my reasoning, but I have always felt a longing for a Chinese daughter...I could see her in my dreams, envision her sitting on my kitchen counter...she has always been in my heart. We are currently making some prayerful decisions regarding the specifics and once those are finalized, then we hope to move forward in updating our paperwork and taking the next steps. We would love to travel to China sometime in 2012...but we also know that we have absolutely no control over this process. If there is one primary lesson learned in our Ethiopian experience, it was that nothing went as expected, yet it all still turned out beautifully in the end.

We were blessed by so much support from friends and family the first time around...we know that this journey is much easier if we do not attempt it alone. Hopefully through this blog we can keep people updated about where we are in the process, fund-raising, our time-line...and ultimately...post the first pictures of our little girl.

Stay tuned...more details coming soon...