How it began...

Okay, first of all, yes, we know we are a bit crazy to be doing this with three children already. But the boys (6, 4, 2) are very excited and the way we look at it, we are already outnumbered so fulfilling my life-long dreams of adopting a child and of having a large family and my husband Doug's desire to have a daughter won out to any additional gray hairs this decision will bring!

Knowing the process to adopt can take a while, I was researching off and on this summer on the internet, looking at waiting children specifically. I was drawn to China for a few reasons; first, a child is a child and to me, all children, regardless of where they were born, deserve forever homes and families. Second, is the obvious - China has many, many girls available for adoption (though they have boys too I have learned) and with three boys, we wanted to try for a girl. Lastly, we are pleased to hear that expecting mothers in China tend to live healthly lifestyles; even many of the "special needs" children available for adoption in China seem to have only minor medical conditions that are easily treatable here in the United States.

So, in September I ran across pictures of waiting children from China and noticed this beautiful girl listed. I was drawn to her but made myself look at hundreds of others to see if I was drawn to them all. And while I thought they were all adorable, I kept going back to this girl's picture, so I wrote the adoption agency and requested her information. Then a few days later I fessed up to my husband, who actually was interested. A few weeks later we wrote our letter of intent (LOI) and received our pre-approval (PA) on November 21st. Since then we have been getting our paperwork together and hopefully by March 1, it will be complete and ready to go to China.

Our daughter's name is Fu Man Lu. We will be naming her Brynn Kellie ManLu. She will be two on June 6, 2006. She is in a foster home through the Fuzhou City Social Welfare Institute. According to her 15 month update, she has thick hair, a round face, loves watermelon, and enjoys being around a lot of action (good thing joining our family). She is in good health. Her favorite toy is a car - and we have hundreds here waiting for her.

My dad will be joining me when I go to China to get her (June or July??). Doug is staying home to be with her brothers.

There is so much more to tell but once the paperwork is done, we will have a 3-4 month wait before we travel so there is plenty of time to fill in the gaps. I hope to use this blog to capture the journey to our daughter and as a way to share that journey with our friends and family, who have been so supportive so far and have really helped make this dream a reality for us. And to those friends that are just finding out now (my Sparta crew and my UR crew), forgive me - it seems odd to write in an email, just like when I was pregnant, plus to me, even though it is most likely going to happen, it in some ways does not seem real! But now that our paperwork is near complete (waiting for one last authentication), I am more confident in sharing! The pictures above is of Man Lu at 7 months and the one to the right is of her at 15 months. Until later.... Kate