Welcome!

Welcome to our online journal of our journey to find our daughter, Ellie, in China. We are excited about the opportunity to become parents again and know that God has perfectly picked Ellie for our family, just as He knit together our boys.

How It Works:
Currently China has matched (referred) families that were "logged in" to China's system through the date of December 27, 2005. In other words, if all the paperwork (dossier) was turned in and processed through China's International Adoption system by 12/27/05, a referral has happened. Our Log In Date (LID) is January 4, 2006. Speculations within the adoption circles say that we could possibly be in the next batch that is given a referral!

China does referrals once per month, typically at the end of each month; however, sometimes this does drag into the beginning of the next month. We are hoping and praying that we will see our referral with the batch that is processed the end of February!

Once a referral has happenened, we will be given a picture of our baby, any medical history that is known, the reason that she is an orphan, and any other pertinent information. At that time we sign some additional paperwork stating that we will accept this referral and send it back to our agency who then overnights it to China. We then wait anywhere from 2-5 weeks for our Travel Approval from China. Once this is obtained, our agency can set up all consulate appointments. After appointments are set, we will be able to purchase tickets and go get our girl! We expect to travel around 4-6 weeks after receiving our referral.

When we started this process in July of 2005, the wait from the LID to referral was around 7 months. We have just passed the 25 month marker. There are many ideas and speculations as to why the wait has increased so dramatically. All of these thoughts are truly educated guesses. One of the more prominent thoughts is in regard to the Summer Olympics being in Beijing this year. The belief is China is wanting to slow down the number of foreigners coming into their country while the entire world's attention is focused on them. Like I said, these are only guesses.

We can rest in the thought that God has His arms of protection and safety around Ellie while she waits for her mommy and daddy and big brothers. We continue to be amazed at how He has provided us this opportunity to become parents again!