Nearer to Noelle: February 2012

Saturday, February 25, 2012

We're invited to China!!

We're coming, Liu Dan!

It's been a long time coming, but we finally received our invitation Friday from the Chinese government to travel to China to pick up our daughter! YAY!! We've been waiting SO LONG!

The next step is to get an appointment from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. We expect to be notified next week of our appointment date and we can make travel plans based on that date. We'll be gone for two weeks and there are two possible departure windows:

March 7th-9th
March 23rd-26th.

Almost every morning at breakfast Emma says "Go get Liu Dan." and "Hard to wait." We couldn't agree more.

Our Journey

We began the adoption process in October, 2006, and were approved by China on April 4th, 2007. At the time, we were expecting to travel to China in the summer of 2008. Little did we know...

While we were preparing to submit our application to the Chinese authorities, China announced big changes in the qualifications for adoptive parents; new restrictions on age, weight, and health. There was a flood of applications from people trying to be approved before the new restrictions went in to effect. What we didn't know was that China also greatly reduced the number of healthy children available for adoption.

The effect of these changes only slowly became clear to us. In the summer of 2010 we learned that, at current rates, we could be waiting another 10 years to receive a healthy child. A 14 year wait!?

So we decided to look into adopting a "special needs" child. We received counseling on special needs from a nurse practitioner who specializes in adoption, then had our home study changed to reflect our desire for a special-needs child and resubmitted our application, not expecting to hear back from China for another year or so. Imagine our suprise when when we were offered Liu Dan only six months later!

The time since then has seemed an eternity. After receiving a few medical records and photos, the flow of information stopped and now we wonder constantly how she's doing.

Our adoption approval from U.S.C.I.S expired (again!) and needed to be renewed. This process should have taken only about 60 days but took much longer. We had to get new fingerprints taken but Ann's new prints were rejected by the USCIS, twice! How long could this drag on while Liu Dan was sitting in an orphanage?

Then, suddenly (or so it seemed), everything started coming together and what seemed an eternity was now 1 1/2 weeks! OMG! Lots to do! That's the point where we created this blog.

I don't know how much free time we'll have in China but sincerely hope that we can share the trials and excitement of each day. Thanks to all our friends and family for investing the time to keep up with us. Those of you awaiting an adoption, you are welcome to contact us. We would love to be a resource for you as so many have been toward us.

Come along with us

Saturday, February 25, 2012

We're invited to China!!