Three years later, here we are!

It's been just over three years since we met Julia and brought her home.  It's been three years of pure joy having her in our lives and watching her grow from a 14-month-old baby to a giggly little girl.  Sometimes I sit back and just watch her and Anna and relish about how lucky I am to have two such sweet, beautiful little girls in my life that I just can't stop hugging.  Julia continues to blossom and Anna is still progressing and fighting the good fight against mitochondrial disease.  Her seizures have dwindled to almost none and for that I am very thankful. 

Ever since we were in China to bring Julia home I've had a desire to go back.  I truly believe that when our plane left Beijing to come back to the U.S. that I left a part of my heart there.  Even if you don't agree with a country's politics you can still appreciate the heritage and the warmness of the people.   China is a part of Julia and so I will always love China. 

Every now and then I would jokingly bring up the possibility of adopting again to Jason but he would only say "yeah, right." One morning in early February he called me into the kitchen and, much to my surprise, told me he had been thinking about it and was ready to adopt again.   Who am I to say no?  :-)   After I told him this wasn't going to get him off the hook for Valentine's Day we had a private celebration with the kids and called our agency, CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International). 

For those of you who didn't follow my first blog, we used CCAI for Julia's adoption and they were wonderful so it was a no-brainer for us to use them again.  We also used them again in the hope that we can return to Henan province for this child.   We filed our application with the agency on February 21st (my birthday!) and our application to adopt was approved on February 28th. 
We are now in the "paperchasing" stage of the process and this won't be finished until we have our dossier compiled and sent to China for a "log-in date."   The dossier includes paperwork such as birth certificates, financial statements, physical exams and a home study.  Then there's another set of documents we have to compile just for the home study.  Our social worker has already visited our home so we're hopeful the home study will be complete soon. 

Once we compile everything for the dossier it all has to be notarized, certified by the state and authenticated by the U.S.   But wait - we're still not done.  After all of this we still need the immigration approval forms from the U.S.   The dossier will then be translated into Chinese by our agency and sent to China.  All of this takes anywhere from three to five months, sometimes longer if there's problems obtaining some documents.  We will probably be matched after we're logged in with China but it's possible we may be matched before then (I'm not going to hold my breath).  After we get matched it will be another four to five months before we travel to China (more paperwork/red tape).  

The million-dollar question - boy or girl?  We've been discussing this for a while now and Jason insists it doesn't matter to him.  In the end, it also doesn't matter to me so we've decided to put "either" and leave it to fate.  We're also open to a wide age range - one up to four years old.  If we get an older toddler that would be just fine with us and give Julia someone to play with (and torment!)
Family is the most important part of my life and we are so thrilled to add another child through adoption.  It has been an amazing experience and I feel privileged to build our family this way.  I look forward to sharing this next chapter in our lives with our family and friends.