Not the right timing....

Well, that was an emotional roller coaster!  Yesterday I was sure that this was our girl, but was waiting to hear back from the Dr. for sure.  After waiting a little more than I wanted (let's face it, that wasn't long!  lol!) I started researching her needs in greater detail because information is vital when making this sort of decision.  Turns out her "minor" need had a 20% chance of being a pretty big deal!  While that's a small chance, if she was in that percentile, she would be mentally retarded, have a 50% chance of developing tumors in her kidneys before the age of 6, and be unable to reproduce due to ovarian malformations.  This on top of her eye condition!!  That was a bit more than I was hoping to deal with!  I kept hoping the Dr. would call and reassure me that based on her behavior listed or picture or something that she would not be in this category.  Last night before bed, I still hadn't heard back and decided that looking up needs that she might not have was not the best idea, so I re-read her file in excruciating detail.  I became worried that her behavior might be a little autistic, but it might also be because she was abandoned at 18 months and she was just emotionally shut down.  It was so hard to tell!  Again, I was hoping the Dr. would reassure me.  This morning I was hoping for that elusive email, but it never came.  I had gotten myself so paranoid that something wasn't right but it was like grasping at straws to try to put my finger on it enough to be rational.  Finally, Dirk called our Dr. to see if he had looked at the file yet.  The receptionist said it had been a crazy couple of days so she would give him the message.  He told her that we were under a time limit and she said she would do her best.  Unfortunately, he was unable to call us before our time frame was up, so we had to decline her.  Even if I wasn't feeling uneasy, we wouldn't have been able to accept a referral without a doctor's review.  I thought I would feel relieved that we turned her down and it wasn't based on my irrational fears, and to some extent I did, but I did feel really sad.  I let myself get a little attached to her and it felt a little like May all over again.  A short time frame to decide, going without a doctor's input, a child on the line....very stressful!  I changed my mind many times, but ultimately we made the only decision we could.  I think it was God's timing that we were unable to get the doctor's opinion because he seems to usually have plenty of availability and then he suddenly gets crazy the days we need to make this decision....seems like God to me!  And really, I know that he would have said that everything looked great and we should go for it.  (Maybe not, of course, but I really am convinced that is what he would've said because it really did look great on paper!)  At this point, we just keep waiting for the next phone call.  Third time's a charm, right?

Approval & Phone Call Received!

I forgot to post, but we got our approval the other day.  I actually got it last week, but they forgot to update our fingerprint date so those looked expired.  Luckily, that was fixed with a simple phone call on my end!  It's always a great thing when dealing with a government office turns out to be simple!  :-)

Today I received another call from our agency!  They described a little girl that matched all of our criteria!  She was abandoned much later than most children, so that will make bonding & attachment WAY harder but it can be done.  I have forwarded her file to our doctor for him to review.  I am pretty confident that he will give the OK because there weren't any red flags that I could see.  I know I'm not a doctor (thus the review), but I do know that her reports seem to be pretty thorough and everything on them looks great.  It looks a bit like her needs were pretty minor so they were trying to come up with a more "significant" need to get her bumped up in priority.  I am still trying to be guarded, but I really think she might be the one for us!  We have until tomorrow to decide.

It's in the mail!

After a week long confusion over a Hague letter (and lots of emails and phone calls on my part) I finally received that letter via FedEx this morning!  I wasted very little time before mailing it along with both home studies and a copy of our RFE back to the USCIS.  Hopefully all goes well there and we get our extended approval in the mail soon.  (How soon is soon?  I wish I knew!)

In the meantime, I am just trying to be patient.  It feels like we might get matched for real any day and I am (surprisingly) eager to go back to China.  Trying to get our house in order is doing a pretty good job of keeping my mind off of things though.  ;-)

Referral?

Our pediatrician, who is intimately familiar with adoptions as God would have it, has reviewed our prospective referral's file.  He said that she looks great!  There was a part where the translation listed her heart rhythm as "illegible" and he wanted that cleared up, but other than that he said there were no concerns.  However, I just didn't have any peace.  There were quite a few "small" things that bothered me.  One is that her weight was insanely low when they found her.  3 kg, so 6.6 pounds, when they found her.  They estimated that she was already 8 months old!  Can you imagine?!  I just can't wrap my mind around that and there's a mental block preventing me from trying too hard to imagine what she must have looked like at that time!  The other is that her nose and mouth just don't "look" right to me.  I know that sounds shallow.  But, after having a hidden mental illness last time, I guess I am extra sensitive to the possibility of mental problems.  There are 5 pictures of her face and every one makes me think that she just "looks" like she likely has some sort of retardation.  (Also I've always been super sensitive to people who can't close their mouths and she doesn't have her mouth closed in a single picture, so I'm sure that doesn't help)  The biggest problem though is that she is a Hep. B carrier.  We did not have that in our list of acceptable needs.  I talked with the doctor at length about this and he assured me that her numbers weren't too bad.  He said that it looked like her mom had Hep B and so that's how this girl had it in her system, but he saw no evidence that this little girl had actually ever had the disease herself and that she, in fact, likely never could because her antibody levels were so high.  (CRAZY high!!)  While I was talking with him, I didn't even think to ask how this would potentially impact our family or her as a wife and potential mother.  I was just concerned with those numbers and whether the disease could ever come out of dormancy in her.  After researching online, though, it looks like something we aren't really prepared to handle.  It would mean additional vaccines for all of us (and our kids just got a ton to meet US standards) and we would have to tread carefully around any of her blood, saliva, and even tears!  Blood I could handle, saliva maybe, but tears?!  Yikes!!  Then there's the high possibility of her infecting her husband and passing it to children (or at least making them carriers as well).  That's just too much for us.  I called our agency and told them that she is a Hep B carrier and our agent freaked out.  She couldn't believe she had missed that and apologized.  She agreed that our family couldn't handle that and she had no problems with us turning her down.  She was confident that there was another family out there for her and is committed to searching for the right child for us.  So, here we are.  Still waiting for our daughter to cross our paths.  I have a feeling it won't be long now!  :-)

New Journey!

So much has happened since I last updated!  The last 5 months have been an emotional roller-coaster unlike anything I could have prepared for.  Still, we have survived it.  Has it made us stronger?  Maybe.  Was it worth it?  Nope.  But, I'm not in control and that has never been clearer than it is now, so I guess that's a good take home lesson.  I will give a condensed update to bring you up to speed with where we are now.  (And, yes, there's a reason why I suddenly chose to update this today...)

-We moved back to the states and are expats no more!  Central IA isn't quite as exotic or exciting as Germany, but it is good.  The kids love their school, our neighborhood is fantastic, and more importantly, family is MUCH closer!!  We are maybe 70% settled into our new house and that frustrates me, but it's a work in progress and I do make some progress every day (even if it isn't noticeable progress).

-Because of the move, we needed to update our home study.  We needed to extend our USCIS approval anyways, so that update is free for the government to review.  (Perhaps the only instance of timing being in our favor!)  I found an amazing agency nearby that could do a home study update for less than half the price of a new home study!  (Everyone else wanted to charge the same amount)  Yay!!

-In getting ready to write up the update, our social worker noticed that our old home study had actually expired in March!!  Yikes!!!  Travelling to China with an expired home study is a major no-no, but we honestly had no idea it had expired!  Unfortunately, that meant she would have to do a complete home study, which meant more paperwork, more time, and more money.  She worked with us and we were caught up in no time!  She drops it off tomorrow evening and we can mail it in to USCIS on Thursday ahead of schedule!
-As a birthday surprise, I saw LuZao get listed again with a new agency.  She was even wearing the dress that we sent her, the same dress she was wearing on our Gotcha Day!  Her hair was in 2 pigtails with the same holders she had when we first laid eyes on her.  She looked exactly the same as I remember her looking!  This was bittersweet.  The sweet part is that I know she must be doing much better to be eligible for adoption again!  (Clearly, she made it out of the hospital!!)  The bitter part is that her special need was still listed as "cortical blindness" and there was NO mention of any mental health problems!  I immediately contacted the agency she is listed with and told them everything I could about her, sent a short video, shared pictures.  I don't want to scare a family away, but I do want them to be prepared so that history doesn't repeat itself!  The agency apparently did receive an update from her orphanage a few days later (possibly on account of me getting a ton of people involved but I don't know) and they added the diagnosis of "autism" to her file.  I am now satisfied that 1) her family will be properly informed and 2) we now know her official diagnosis so we can have peace that we did make the right decision.

-Now for the reason I am posting this today, exactly 5 months after our first "Gotcha Day".  I received a phone call from my agency today.  (You know what that means, right?!)  They just received 2 referrals from a newer partner orphanage and she said that one of them just might be our one.  Yay!!  I won't give any details until we have had a chance to have her file reviewed by a doctor and until we have decided one way or another, but I am cautiously optimistic.  :-)