While on our annual, wonderful spring trip to "Polly's Beach," we got an e-mail saying that our LOA had been generated in China and should be at our agency - and then in our hands - the following week!!  This marks the last phase of the waiting and paperwork process.  This also means that her country has approved us to adopt her. 

These sweet brothers can't wait to meet her.  She is going to love them so much (we hope!) :)

AN UPDATE ON EMILY JEAN!!

Since Emily's was about seven months old when we received it, we requested an update on her through an outside organization that has relationships with and deals with orphanages on behalf of adopting families.  In just 2 days, we received an update showing her continued great progress and we received these pictures of our adorable and sassy little girl (if I do say so myself!)

 

 

 

I about flew out of my chair at work when I received the e-mail with these pictures!  It's such a weird feeling to have only seen baby pictures and then to receive these pictures showing her 7-8 months older!  We hate that we are missing all of these months with her, but we are thrilled that she is smiling in these pictures (sadly, not usually the case with orphans) and that she looks happy and healthy.  She is out on a playground and is clearly walking and playing and someone has cared enough about her to put her hair in a little "horn-on-head" ponytail and to give her sunglasses to wear in the bright outside light. 

INTRODUCING... EMILY JEAN ANAND

We received Preliminary Approval for our daughter on March 15 - the same day we submitted the Letter of Intent for her.   We decided - along with the boys - to name her Emily Jean.  Jean - after my mom.  We're not sure yet whether we'll call her Emily or Emily Jean.  We just can't believe that it's actually happening.  All of these months of paperwork and angst and waiting for phone calls and reviewing files and now we know who she is.  For three and a half years --- going back to when we first started talking about and investigating adoption -- I've I tried to imagine what our daughter might look like.  Now we know!  She's so beautiful!!

 

OUR GIRL!!!

WE KNOW WHO OUR DAUGHTER WILL BE!!!

After all of the discouragement and sadness of the past several weeks, we were trying to hold onto some hope that we would find the child meant to be a part of our family.  On March 11th, our agency rep emailed me to ask if we might consider a special need that was not on our special needs "list" (something the agencies ask you to research and "check" off so that they know best how to match you with a child) because she thought a child's file might appear the next night.  We asked for a day to research and ask questions and I remembered that a Facebook group had been asking moms to do short "tutorials" on their children's special needs.  One of the most recent posts was from a mom of a child with this particular need.  I re-read her post and e-mailed her for more information.  I also read more blogs, read health websites and medical documents, e-mailed some other moms on different Facebook and other groups, and we talked about whether this need might be something we could handle.  We were nervous about it, but it didn't really seem to be a big deal at all.  Overriding everything, though, was that we had just said "no" to two children and we did NOT want to ever do that again.  We were on the verge of telling our agency that we didn't think we could consider the file if it appeared when a friend of mine asked, "Would you say yes to reviewing the file if you had not said "no" to those other children?"  The answer was: yes.  We were just so worried about saying "no" that we were almost too scared to look at a new file.  Realizing that without risk, there is no reward, we told our agency that if the file appeared, we wanted to see the child's information.

The next night, I nervously watched the clock and the phone and, around 10 p.m., our agency rep called.  She had the file.  She told us that when she had seen the file pop up for a second on the "shared list" earlier in the week, our names came to her mind immediately.  She said that although the file disappeared from the list, she just somehow "knew" that it would come back Wednesday night.  We opened it cautiously and then saw our girl!  She was beautiful and big and SMILING.  Her file was full of positive information.  And she was born the VERY DAY that we applied with our agency in January 2013.   The day we took the big leap of faith, she was born!!

We sent her file to an international adoption pediatrician just to cover the bases, but we knew what he would say.  And, by the next morning, we had an e-mail from him that read:  "Lee Ann, we can talk more tonight, but I really just have three words for you:  GO GET HER!!"   "Nothing but positives" in her file, he said.  And we agreed.  I drafted our Letter of Intent and called our agency rep on March 15th and told her that she had found our girl. 

And with that decision/phone call, all of our worries and angst and discouragement and sadness of the past couple of months disappeared.  We called and emailed our families to tell them - and they were all so excited.  We showed the boys her picture and Graham kissed the Ipad and Jackson said that she looked like Elsa from "Frozen."   They immediately began discussing what specific things they would teach their sister. 

 

Not the One

Only a few days after we had declined the other referral that I wrote about, we received a call from our agency about another child.  Her file looked pretty good - although she was definitely small and somewhat behind developmentally.  We thought her progress seemed good, though, so we said "yes" and submitted our Letter of Intent.  At the same time, we asked the orphanage for an update on her because the file was very old - from almost 10 months earlier.  The update came about a week later and contained measurements and developmental information TOTALLY different from that which had been in the original file.  Where the original file said she weighed 13 pounds at 6-7 months, the "update" said she weighed 13 pounds at 20 months.  Where the original file listed her at one height/length, the update showed her 3 inches smaller.  Where the original file showed several good developmental milestones, the update did not have those listed.  Our agency asked for an explanation for the very different information.  Another week went by - and in the meantime, our LOA (something everyone is desperately waiting for to move forward with their adoption) arrived.  The orphanage finally responded that they were very sorry, but the original file was full of inaccurate information.  We asked for pictures so that we might be able to determine from those what was really going on, whether she had grown, how tiny she really was, what she could do, etc...   We asked for a picture of her standing or a full-body picture.  The orphanage sent only a headshot - nothing showing her body or size or abilities.  They refused to send anything more or to explain why they were now saying that the original file was all wrong.  We consulted with doctors again and they were very skeptical that we had any/enough valid and reliable information from which to make this leap of faith.  They also thought her lack of growth signaled that her brain might also not be growing.  Totally discouraged and sad, we returned the LOA saying that we could not accept this file.  I think this was the point when we felt the most discouraged and uncertain about the whole process.  I began to wonder if maybe we were mistaken about adoption being something we were supposed to do.  We were also really frustrated that some of the orphanages seem to be doing things that hinder the adoption process vs. help the children.   

 

 

On the night I wrote the "nothing to report" post, we received a call for a tiny little child in a very, horribly poor orphanage in Southern China.  I had seen a note on a Facebook group that this child would be returned to the list on Thursday and I debated about mentioning this information to our agency person and typed and deleted the e-mail several times before sending.  She indicated that she would look for this child.  Around 9:15 that night, she called.  She had just refreshed her computer and this child's file appeared.  The child was very malnourished and behind developmentally - but so precious.  Her videos made me cry because they only further showed her dismal circumstances.  I researched her orphanage and found blog posts from others who had been there.  Babies are in plywood cribs 22-23 hours a day and there are 1-2 workers to every 40-45 babies.  She had never been given a chance to do much other than to lie in her crib.  No wonder her only listed milestone was "staring at her hands."  Heartbreaking.  Doctors' cautioned us about her and we were very worried.  We know that all children in orphanages will be delayed and will not have had the stimulation that most children have.  We also know that children in orphanages are almost always much, much tinier than the developmental charts.  Still, we have to first consider the children we already have and what we can realistically do with two people working full-time jobs and with two children who are already here.  By the end of our 72-hour period, we realized that we just could not get to a place of feeling that this precious baby was meant to be our girl.  When we started this process, we knew that we might one day be at a point where we would decide that we could not move forward with a child based upon information in the referral file.  It is one thing to "know" that it might happen and another thing to go through the process of looking at a child's face and information and then to say no.  She broke our hearts.   

I wish more people knew of the conditions endured by many of the worlds' orphans.  I looked at our basement full of toys and wished I could ship them out to be used in places like this that have nothing but a hard concrete floor, plywood cribs, and rooms without any toys.  I wish I could go hold the babies and quiet their cries.  Heartbreakingly, some don't even cry because they have long since realized that nobody is coming to answer their cries.  

 

I know this little one will find her family - especially because she is very young and is so very beautiful and she has a listed special need that a lot of families very much want to consider.  I will pray for her to find the family who will immediately feel that she is meant to be their girl.  I know they are out there waiting for her.

Nothing to report...  No call for us in December or from the January 20th shared list.   It's difficult not to be frustrated by the reports of "tiny" lists.  There are so many children who need homes and seemingly a lot of families ready and waiting.  Hopefully the kinks in the system will be worked out soon and larger lists posted and more children matched -- including our daughter to us...

 

In the meantime, I am thankful for my awesome, sweet, special boys. 

They are our greatest gifts. 

As I tell them every night: I love them more than anything in all the world!