Adoption Hurdle Crossed

January 29 kicks off the Chinese New Year—the year of the dog, and as a beautiful New Year surprise, Bret and I received our official immigration pre-approval paperwork this week. Now to understand the gift we’ve been given, one must understand that most couples wait an average of EIGHT weeks for their approval. Ours, miraculously, was finished in ONE WEEK (absolutely unheard of)!!

What does all this mean in adoption terms? Our dossier (collection of official paperwork) will be sent to China much sooner than expected. We hope to be logged into the Chinese Adoption Affairs system by the end of March (pray for the end of February). The wait from Log in Date to referral is now longer than expected (between 8-12 months), but we are hopeful (and prayerful) that we still might be traveling in 2006.

It’s a long pregnancy, but the wait will be worth it. We now know that we will indeed be receiving a girl (maybe twin girls), but we had to remove our names from the “either sex” category because of a weird paperwork glitch (that would have caused a delay).

It’s hard to believe the paperwork chase is almost over. There will be much celebration and relief once China has all of our paperwork, and while we will STILL be waiting almost double the time of a biological pregnancy, we are excited to start the fun stuff: deciding on names, painting the nursery, and buying books (the most important toy [at least to this English teacher]).

All in all, I am touched at the amazing thing that is adoption. There is something beautiful about taking a child, alone and afraid in this world, without much hope or love, and bringing her into our home as our own dearly loved child. It’s beautiful to understand, in a fresh and unique way, how the two most important needs of my life have been met through adoption: I’ve been adopted into God’s family, and now a little baby girl from China will be adopted into ours.

It’s fun for me to think that other parents will tell their children that they waited nine long months and traveled to the hospital to have them. Bret and I will say that we waiting even longer and traveled half way around the world to find our baby girl.