Find the Way to our Daughter - Part 2

Did you see, we've been matched with a beautiful little girl!  Before you read this, head over to part 1 of our journey to finding our daughter.

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So when you've already invested so much of your heart to adoption and realize that the options are so few and far between for who you thought was going to joining your family, it's not a good feeling.

But adoption has always been on our hearts and we knew we wanted to do it.  But did we want to do it so much so that we'd compromise what we thought best for our family?  That's where we were struggling.

I did research on older child adoptions (anything over 3 is considered "Older Child")  I looked at just about EVERY single waiting child photolisting website possible.  I said to Dave, "I think we need to just consider that our initial feelings of an older child IS best for us.  I think we need to consider that our social worker was talking broad term.  She doesn't KNOW us, know us.  She talked about older child adoptions and parents getting divorced - parents going on anti-depressants...lots of icky things.

But she doesn't know that we've been through a lot already in life and we've hung on.  She doesn't know that you were like rock-star dad for MONTHS when I was healing from Hellp.  She doesn't know that we survived like 3-4 years of Miles waking up 4+ times a night.  She doesn't know that we literally survived thee hardest baby/toddler/little kid in the world!  And surgeries, job changes, deaths, kids surgeries....we've not new to this sticking together through it all thing.

"We just need to consider that we know more about what's best for our family that the general assumptions."

And so, I spent the last month of the kid's school year with my nose in the computer and my ear to the phone.  I researched every single (and I mean EVERY single) country that was an option - even those that weren't options.

I watched "Rainbow Kids" (huge photolisting of waiting children) and inquired about a few children that were not from Korea.  I talked in depth to people working in the Haiti program, Uganda program, Congo program, Taiwan program, China program...I bet more, even, if I sat and made a list. I'm pretty much thinking that I could work in an agency today and answer all of the newbie questions I had. ;)

I was ready to jump the Korea ship if the right child with the right needs came along and we felt right about it.  Because I just knew in my heart of hearts that there was a child waiting for us.  And she wasn't going to be a baby.  And her birth year was going to be 2008 or 2007.  I just had to find her.

Who knew that God placed us in the Korea program for a reason....She was THERE! Waiting for US all along!

Go to Part 3