Finally!!!

19Sep06

From the time we started our paperwork in July, 2005, we have been taught the very valuable lessons of patience, persistance and prayer.  It is now time to introduce our little girl, who will soon be known as Lydia Mei Roberts.

Now don’t let her bald, burly stare scare you off - shaved heads are the norm in many Chinese Orphanages – less to wash and take care of. 

This photo is from this past February, and our little one’s orphanage is without heat, which explains the 6 or so layers of clothes on our little peanut.

Lydia was born on March 11, 2004, and now lives in an orphanage in the city of Luoyang, which is in the province of Henan.  If you’re a Wikipedia fan, click on the city and province links to find out more than you probably want to know.

The Story

Some of you may know that we initially applied for a Non-Special Needs child back when we started, but over this past summer, we started to think more and more about going the Special Needs route.  Unfortunately, our agency was told not to expect any children for consideration until early 2007, so we figured that we’d sit tight. 

On Monday, September 11th, we received a very unexpected call from our adoption agency, European Adoption Consultants (EAC), with news of a little Special Needs girl – named Dang Yi Mei – whom they were trying to place here in the United States.  Our agency thought that she might be a good fit with our family.

All we knew was that she had some intestinal issues that had been fixed with surgical procedures in China, and that she’s had a very tough little life until now. 

In the period of one week following the call, we’d been able to get two English translations of her paperwork, and our Chinese coordinator from our agency has been in direct contact with the orphanage twice to get some answers…a very fast turnaround on all fronts.

The final kicker was that Tami called the Cleveland Clinic to inquire about a possible pediatric consult on this little girl’s condition.  We were offered an appointment 4 days later (Monday, September 18th) with a fantastic pediatric surgeon.  For those who know about the Clinic, getting a non-emergency consult in less than a month is stretching it, so a 4-day appointment turnaround was mind-blowing.  Divine Intervention? Indeed.

Our 15-minute appointment lasted 45 minutes and our Doctor spent a long time with us thoroughly covering best-to-worst case scenerios.  He provided a gameplan on followup visits should we adopt. 

In his opinion, this little girl, now our Lydia, had less complicated problems and she’ll lead a normal life and might not need any further treatment in the States.  He told us that as a doctor, and more importantly, as a parent himself, there are certain cases where he’d advise against adopting, but that our case was not one of them.  That was all we needed to hear!

We boogied straight down to our agency from the doctor’s office to fill out the petition for her adoption. 

So What’s Next?

We must first await word from China that they’ve made it official, which will be followed by a Travel Approval to get into the country.  Our agency will then arrange to necessary appointments while we are in China to make from the country. 

If everything moves quickly, we could travel by December.  

Thanks for the thoughts & prayers and we look forward to sharing more with you real soon! 

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