China Update

Most of you who know Darren and I or are close to us already know that we are in the process of adopting a little girl from China; however, for those of you who don't know, here's a small bit of background.

In the Fall of 2006, Darren and I were guided by a strong spiritual experience to begin the process of adopting a baby from China. I can't quite put into words what we went through, but it was one of the most incredible and most spiritual things Darren and I have ever experienced. So, we began the daunting task of compiling all of the paperwork necessary for our dossier and went through a home study. We began the paperwork process at the end of October, 2006. Our paperwork was finally logged into China on March 2007, which is referred to as our LID (Log In Date). This is the date that we judge our timeline on for estimating when we think we will be traveling to China to bring home one (or two!!) baby girls. Our first request was for twins, so if twins are available when our file comes up for match, we'll get twins; otherwise, we will get one precious little girl.

When we first started the process, we thought we would be traveling around October/November of this year (2008). Timelines have increased quite a bit since we started the process, and we are currently looking at late summer 2009 for our names to come up for match. Once we are matched, we will travel within 4-6 weeks. The wait seemed excrutiating when we first started, but we've just gotten used to waiting, and we figure that God has his own plan for all of this! When she's meant to come into our family, it will happen. So, for now, we are just hanging out, working on completing projects around the house that Darren swears we won't have time for when she's here (and he's probably right!!!).

Thank you all for your love, support, and excitement regarding our decision. We pray that things will speed up so that we can bring her precious spirit into our home, but most of all, we pray for her biological mother; we pray that she will be able to carry our daughter without complications and that she will be healthy. We also pray for her and the difficult decision she will have to make to give her up for adoption because she will likely feel that she is faced with no other choice.

By the way, we have already named our daughter - her name will be Peyton, and we already call her by that name. She's in our hearts - we're just waiting to have her in our arms!!