I cant believe I am becoming a blogger! First of all I am the worlds worst speller and I have horrible grammar.
Where do I start? I have been married for over 16 years to a wonderful guy I met when I was 16!! (I will never let my daughter read that part.) We just moved to the Rockies last year after living in the Northwest for over 15 years. We are both from sunny spots of the world; California and Phoenix and the "no sun" Northwest was not working for us. We knew California was too expensive to move back and Phoenix just way too hot! So we looked at a map and the Rockies it was. Over 350 days of sunshine a year and the cost of living was pretty good. So here we are starting over with no family or friends of 15 years around.
We have four sons ages 13, 11, almost 9, and 4 1/2. Back in May of 2005 we filled out an application for adoption. I have always thought of adopting someday and after 4 boys and a rough 4th pregnancy we thought the timing was good. We waited until July 2005 to send in the application with the payment, placements were happening quickly and we had to wait on our house refi to have the money to begin.
October 1st we started collecting the paper work for our Dossier (This is what is sent to China to be approved and matched with a child) We finished pretty quickly and had everything by December 2005 but we were still waiting for our homestudy to be written. By January 2006 our homestudy was finished and we were now waiting for our I-171, the final piece of paper before we could send our Dossier to China! Well it took forever, and we did not get it back until March 2006. On March 31, 2006 our Dossier was finally sent to China and the what we thought would be 6 month wait would began! We got word on April 10, 2006 that our Dossier was Logged in China, this is called your LID, now we are in line!
Over the next few months as I watch referrals come in and read peoples blogs and websites I noticed a slow down. Every month it is getting worse and worse. My husband and I talked many times about considering special needs but we still were not sure about it.
Fast forward to September 2007, the wait is now looking like 3-4 years before referral. We talk again about a special needs child, we called our agency and ask for a check list. Over the next few months I looked at and research several special needs I thought we could handle. December 7th, 2007 we send back our check list to our agency. We also changed our age range from 18mo-3 1/2 years. Our youngest is getting older and we were really hoping to have them close in age.
Ash Wednesday 2008 we are on our way out the door to go to church and the phone rings. We were already running a little late and my hubby said to let the voicemail pick up. I looked quickly at the caller ID and saw our agency name!! I started to shake and the tears started to flow, I just knew it was a referral call! I made my husband answer it because I knew I would not be able to speak. They had a match for us, a little girl 3 1/2 years old with a heart condition. We were so excited, my heart was pounding so hard! It was 6:00pm and cardio Dr office was not open to look at her file. I could not understand exactly what the heart condition was. I did not sleep a wink that night and could not wait until morning to fax the paper work to the doctors office.
Eight o'clock the next morning the doctor received her paper work. I could not stop staring at her picture, she was such a doll. Around 12:00pm the phone rang and it was the Doctor, my heart skipped a beat, will this little girl actually be our daughter? Well the news was heart breaking! Her condition was very serious!! We live at a very high altitude, 7,600 ft, and her heart would not do well here and it would make her condition worse. We knew we could not move to sea level. The doctor also said she had a pretty good chance of needing a heart transplant in her early 20's plus many more surgeries before that. Our hearts sunk, we could not be hearing this correctly, we have waited almost two years for this phone call and this is not what I wanted to hear. The next phone call I made was to our agency and I had to tell them we could not accept her.
She has been in my prayers every night that she will find her forever family and be healed. About 2 months after I gave her file back I found a lady on the internet that was asking questions about a little girl that fit her description. To my surprise it was her, come to find out a few days later she had three cardio doctors get back to her and they all said the same thing about her heart and this lady knew they could not do that either.
So the wait begins again. Fast forward again, April 15th 2008, just over 2 years since our Dossier was logged in China. Around 5:30pm the phone rings and it is our agency again. This time I was able to answer myself, Im a little guarded now knowing what can happen. They have another match for us!! Much younger this time, about 15 months old but she would be about 18 months or older by the time we had her. Again she is a heart baby, again the doctors office is not opened and another sleepless night!! Same routine, faxed papers to Doctor to review. Around 12:00pm the Dr. calls me back, she has a complicated heart condition but very fixable and altitude would not bother her. She should live a normal life after surgery with no restrictions. My heart skips another beat and I know this is our daughter we have been waiting for!!! I had to wait for my hubby to get off the phone so we could discuss what the Dr. said and call our agency back.
About an hour later we decide she is ours and make the call to our agency. They congratulated us said someone would be calling back soon to get information that they needed.
Before I go any further I want to explain the way the special needs adoptions work. Before January 2008 agencies would get a packet every three months or so with special needs children to be matched with families waiting. Starting January 2008 China began a new process. China now has one website that all special needs children are put on and all agencies have to share this list to find children to match with their families waiting. China also started a new rule that the file can only be locked for 24-48 while the paper work is being completed and a family is matched! We had no idea about this new rule, this means you have to talk to doctors and make a decision in 24 hours!!! If you dont then the childs file is unlocked and any other agency in the world can take it.
Back to waiting for our agency to call back to get more info from us. A few hours later the phones ring and I get a feeling that something is not right. The voice on the other end starts to explain that somehow the file unlocked before they could enter the information and another agency took the file. Even worse they have no way of knowing what agency has the file. In our heart this was already our daughter and I could not believe what I was hearing!! I was speechless and said okay and hung up the phone. The tears fell and fell and fell!! I went into my hubby's office and told him what happened, I was shaking by then and could not control my emotions.
Well if you are still reading you are amazing! It is almost 12:00am and I must end for tonight, I will start where I left off tomorrow and finish the rest of this roller coaster ride...our life.........
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