When Manuel and I were madly in love and dating, we always said that we would some day adopt. People used to tell us that would change after we had our own children. I remember Manuel asking me after Sole was about 6 months old if we would still adopt and I was like NO! Luna had not slept one night since birth and Sole was a demanding colicky nightmare too. But about a year and a half ago we were watching a movie and some of the scenes were set in an Asian orphanage and I looked at Manuel and asked him if he would still want to adopt. He said yes. So like I always do, I took the ball and ran with it. Within a week I had 50 adoption brochures, I had talked to numerous companies about different programs, but China felt right. There was a point where we pursued Guatemala because we thought it would be easier on our girls to travel there to pick up our child. The program closed shortly after and we were back on track with China. It has not been an easy road for us. Our home study company was shut down for fraud and our documents were out there somewhere in the system. Our social Worker managed to take our file with her and after much work we were able to find her and and get it from her. It seems that this journey has been so tough from the very beginning. So every month our agency sends out the special needs list, something we were not interested in considering we have 2 children with special needs already. Of course, I look at it every time anyway. I look at all of the children and wonder who will love them and who will take care of them. I look at all of the illnesses and I cant even pronounce them. I see 7 year old child with the words HEALTHY-OLD next to them. When did 7 become old? So as I am scrolling down I see Jiangsu 4 year old developmental delays. My heart stopped. I wrote to Andrea at my agency and asked for information on#56. We were on our way to Sole's therapy so I would have to wait until the evening when we returned home. #56 WoW. I could not wait. Andrea called me and said "she's a cutie"! She had sent the info. to my email. I ran in the door and pulled it up on my computer and there she was Yang ChunXiao. 4years old with developmental delays. Her report was sent to Georgetown U. for a doctor to look at. He called me about a half hour later and said she looked fine health wise to him. Her delays were not significant. For us, her delays were normal. She is a healthy, normal , beautiful child. We only know this kind of child. We have never known a child that is typical. We have only raised children with special needs. She was born for us. I felt scared. I hung her picture on the wall and Luna walked by and said that she needed hair. Her referral picture would show her with her head nearly shaved. I said she does need hair Luna and she also needs a family. It was a rough couple days for Manuel and I. We thought that we would be experiencing all of this 3 years down the road. We thought that our girls would be able to make the flight to China and we would be bringing home a 2-3 year old healthy child. What were we thinking? We sent our letter of intent after the weekend and they locked her in for us. We received our preapproval right away and the ball got rolling. We now have another child.
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