What are the Chances?

Yes, this is a foolish question because its only about 10 months til Jessie's next birthday, but ...
What are the chances that we'll at least find out she is ours before her next birthday? Well, we have a positive response to our LOI, but we still have to clear the dossier test ...

I know. We JUST turned in our paperwork. We've not had our home study. The "fortunate" group of us who get the DHR lady with the M-Z cases typically get to wait at least 3 months for her to get to them. then it takes about 90 days (sometimes more) for our CSICS office to do their thing. Then there is the wait for DTC, Log-in and all that. I just don't have the experience of working backward like this on a SN adoption to know how fast or slowly it may go once our dossier gets to China. I'm actually assuming that we will end up having to do at least the China portion of our dossier again by the time the US side gets through all they have to do with it. Not really expecting to be able to get Jessie by her next birthday, but wouldn't it be awesome!

It took us (what seemed) forever on Ray's adoption (NSN program). We decided to adopt in Oct. 2002. I think we finally got our papers in to our agency in July 2003. Our first choice of country fell through and we switched to China. Resubmitted all new documents and were logged in on Sept. 12, 2005. (Ray was born on Sept. 6, so we feel we jumped the gun on our first attempt and God held us back until OUR child was born.) We finally got our referral for Ray on Jan 3, 2007 and completed the adoption in China Feb. 28.

It's a Boy! Finding Out About Ray.

By the way ... as we all know, the vast majority of children adopted through the NSN program in China are girls. When we did our paperwork we requested a girl between the ages of 3 and 6, but also stated that a boy would be welcomed.

About 3 or 4 months before we got our referral I started having dreams about our child. In EVERY dream he was a boy. I never once dreamed about a girl. I would catch myself looking at boy names on the internet (a lot of good that did since hubby ended up picking Ray's name, LOL). I'd be looking at little boy's clothes in the stores. I asked our agency director about the possibility of getting a boy. She said, "no way, you're getting a girl." And she stuck to that story every time I asked.

We'd gone ahead and decorated the room for a girl. Mint green walls with white butterflies stenciled all over ... A frilly white dresser with carved roses ... a blue bedspread with butterflies ... you get the picture. Very girly!

Then, the call came on Jan. 3, 2007. I remember it clear as day. I'd been waiting for my turn all day. Pat calls everyone in alphabetical order when the referrals come in, being a "U" we were last on the list. I think she finally got to us around 2:30 or 3:00 that afternoon. I answered my cell phone at work, set on a very loud siren sound just for the agency, and heard Pat's voice, "Laura??" "Yes, Pat??" "Laura, you're not going to believe this." "It's a BOY, isn't it, Pat!" "Yes! And there's something else ... he's only 16 months old!" I feel pretty sure everyone in the building could probably hear me talking. I have a tendency to get very loud when I'm excited. I absolutely could not sit still. Anyway, Pat was sitting at the ready to email me the photos of our sweet little boy, but I made her wait until I could get hold of Dennis and get him to his computer so he could see about the same time I did. When I got him on the other phone and told him we had a boy he hollered out to his co-workers "IT"S A BOY! I'm a daddy!" then we got to see his adorable little face. Three photos that were all obviously taken on the same day. But, gosh, wasn't he just the cutest thing! We both immediately started sending his photo out to all our family and friends. Its one of the times I really wish my mom had a computer. She had to wait 2 days for the envelope to get to her.

When we got the referral packet, and our letter of acceptance, we didn't even give our pediatrician time to wait on the translation of the medical for review. We signed our papers and sent them right back in. Ray was ours and it didn't matter to us if he had a problem we were unaware of at the time. I can guarantee this little man was worth every minute of our long wait. All told, over 1,500 days from the time we decided to adopt until we met our little guy for the first time at the SWI in Beijing, China. Definitely worth every minute. ;-)