Happy Thanksgiving to us!!!

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving this year! I know for us, we had one that we will NEVER forget, but before I move ahead with what made our day so special I need to back up the story some...(and ya'll know me with details so it's gonna be a long post ;-) !!

I haven't posted in a LONG time (again, just like last time...sorry), but in my last post I stated that we had our home study updated and in that we added that we are willing to take a special needs child from China. Since then, when someone has asked us about the status of our adoption we've been saying that we are still 'waiting' and that we are open to adopting a special needs child because the wait time is much shorter for those kids, so that is more than likely the route we will take! Just another update is that they are placing children with their 'forever families' with log in dates through the end of May 2006 and our log in date is March 5, 2009, so still a LONG, LONG way to go!!

Last month, I was out with some girls from my Sunday School class and one of the girls had just gotten back from China. Her and her husband had visited some family members who are missionaries there and told us stories of the orphanages and some of the sad things she had seen. Well, that next day Jaime and I were talking about that and had said 'We have got to get over there and get our baby girl and bring her home soon'. Well that SAME day, a lady from our adoption agency who works with the special needs department within our agency called us. Our adoption agency has never called us out of the blue in the 2 years we've been on this journey, so needless to say we were surprised. Anyway, she asked if we were still interested in adopting a child with special needs as it was stated in our updated homestudy (the one we updated in April, and again this was October...they never called til today) and we told her that we were. She then told us that once a month a shared list comes out for all the agencies to look through and if that agency picks a child from that list there is a 'lock' put on that child meaning no one has access to it except for the family that the agency chose it for. That family then has 72 hours to make a decision on whether or not they want to proceed to adopt that child. Hopefully that all makes sense...Anyway, the day Stephanie (lady from adoption agency) called that night was when the shared list was coming out and she told us if she found a good match for us, be expecting a call anytime that evening even up until midnight! So, we anxiously awaited for the phone to ring but it never did. She emailed the next day saying that there weren't that many kids as anticipated there would be on the list.

So, now to November...well the day the list was to come out for this month was this past Monday and again we waited but no call. We were fine with that and just accepted the fact that even with adopting a special needs child it may take awhile too.

Ok, so now to Thanksgiving Day...Jaime was on shift and I was at home and it was late, around 11:30 and Jaime calls and says he had a missed call and a voicemail but before he checked it, he checked his email and there was one from Stephanie with the subject; LITTLE GIRL LOCKED! She had found a girl and she was locked for only us to look at! Jaime then listened to his message and it was Stephanie, saying the same thing as her email. She sent us her medical records and even a few pictures of the little girl! All we can tell you is she is 16 months old and her 'special need' is that she has a cleft lip and palate.

After much prayer, discussing it, and having a doctor look over her medical records we have decided to proceed forward and adopt this precious little girl! If this is God's Will and everything goes according to plan this little girl will be our 3rd daughter!!!! We are beyond thrilled and wanted to share it with all of you! There still is so much to do so with that, they say the time frame we are looking at from now until we travel to China is 5 to 8 months so we should have her just before her 2nd birthday, which is July 25th! We told the girls today and they are so excited to be getting their little sister! It was just precious and so sweet with Abby, our oldest, that when we showed them her picture and they saw her cleft lip Abby said 'I'd love her with or without that lip'...ahhh, just made me want to cry!!

Please continue to pray for us during this journey as now there is an end in sight!! I will DEFINITELY be updating the blog much more often until we bring our baby girl home!!
Thank you!!
~Melissa