November 19, 2008

While our blog is just beginning, our journey to adopt Mika Ke Dundore began 2 years ago. In November 2005 we sent in our paperwork to adopt our second child from China. The "wait time" continued increasing each month, and we knew this was going to be much longer than Annie's adoption. About a year ago, Rich and I decided to put our names on the "Waiting Children (special needs) List. We knew we couldn't have a child with a significant need due to the size of our family, but we also knew we did have hearts that wanted to see these sweet kids with loving families.

On September 20th we got the call we had been waiting for! Our adoption agency asked if we'd like to review the case of Yi Ke Qun, and we said an enthusiastic yes! We opened the e-mail and found an adorable little girl with chubby cheeks and beautiful brown eyes. We had doctors and an occupational therapist review her file, and all they could find was roughly a 3 month developmental delay. This was too good to be true!

We sent word to the Chinese government that we wanted to adopted Yi Ke Qun on Sept. 22nd. After a month, on Oct 23, we received our Pre-Approval to adopt her. Now, the we began the wait for our Referral Acceptance - this was the official "she's ours" acceptance.Our agency told us it would take approximately 1-3 months for this to arrive. But God had other plans! November 1st was the day our acceptance arrived - it took only 8 days!!!

We are currently waiting for our Travel Approval which will tell us when our actual travel dates will be. When we began this process our agency was estimating we'd leave for China mid to late December, and that looks like it could be pretty accurate. Kiana, Noah and Annie will not be going with us, so it could mean a Christmas apart. That breaks my heart, but I have to keep reminding myself that we're bringing home a great present for our entire family! A fantastic scenario for us would be traveling to China around Dec 18-20, so we could fly the kids to Oregon to be with my sister and Dad and Mom for the holidays. Can you believe my sister actually wants to watch my kids for 2 whole weeks?! She's a saint!

I found myself filled with worry last night over the travel dates. I so need to stay in this moment and not worry about the "what if'" scenarios of this whole journey. I continually remind myself that God is in control. He is trustworthy, and He wants the best for all of us.

Yesterday morning we woke up to an incredible site in our inbox -15 pictures of Mika! We had not seen any pictures of her since she was 9 months old (she is now 16 months old). We were wondering if her delay was increasing, or if she was even walking. Our fears were dispelled as we saw picture after picture of Mika walking and running! We can hardly wait to bring our little daughter home!