Chapter Three Begins

Our lives have been truly blessed by our two previous adoptions from China. And yet, as time has gone on and our daughters have grown a bit older, both of us have felt that perhaps we still have a little more we want to give. There were all of the usual concerns that had to be addressed...could we afford the adoption?... could we work out the "logistics" of having 3 kids in the house instead of the 2 that everyone was accustomed to?...and could we get the paperwork done and sent to China before June 2008 (when one of us turns 55 and too old to adopt, as far as China is concerned)? As the new year started, we both decided that another adoption trip to China was indeed something that our family could handle (and was, in fact, something all 4 of us were excited about doing), and so we began the whole process once again.

Cathy had found the little girl we hoped to adopt on the waiting child list of an agency called "World Association for Children and Parents" (WACAP) in Seattle, Washington. We were sent a few pictures and a description of her special-needs (her age and some congenital colo-rectal problems that had been repaired with surgery in China), and after some discussions with a local pediatric surgeon, we decided that we could easily handle her medical conditions. So, as quickly as we could, we got together the initial paperwork and in late January, the agency sent it all to China seeking "pre-approval" for us to adopt her.

Because we are working against a time limit of sorts, at the same time we were getting the "pre-approval" paperwork ready, we also started on our home study and getting our dossier together. If everything goes as we hope it will, our homestudy will be done before the end of February. Then, we will be able to take it to Kansas City to get our fingerprints and the necessary Federal papers we need. Hopefully, this will allow us to get our final papers sent to China sometime in April. We don't realistically expect that we will get to travel before Fall (the Beijing Olympics in August will make trips more difficult AND expensive this summer). As we reach the various "milestones" on our journey, we'll be posting the details here, so you can follow our progress.

And here is the goal of all our work.


Her name is Jin Xin. She is 5 years old, and she is currently living at a social welfare institute in Tianjin, a city about an hour southeast of Beijing. We'll post more pictures and more details of the whole process as important things happen. Stay tuned :)