My wife and I were married in 2001 and I think from the start we wanted to adoption. We were really intrigued with International adoption specifically China. So we started the gathering up all the paperwork, background checks, financial, answering every inconceivable question to put together our dossier which we then to sent of to China. We had an added wrinkle being married in Jamaica it took extra time to write/call to get copies of the marrage license. China was very strict in that they wanted official original and notarized copies of EVERYTHING. Then the waiting began for most of 2003, or as others have described as the paper pregnancy. After some time told us they had recieved and accepted our dossier. Around 9 months later they notified us of a matched with a child and to prepare to travel within 6 weeks. In 2004 we spent 3 weeks in country, taking in some sights before going to her province, and finally through the US Consulate to finish her paperwork to become a US citizen. So are first adoption was Aubree and she was 14 months old. After some time adjusting we knew we weren’t stopping at 1, we kept our paperwork up to date and starting looking at waiting child lists through other agencies. For folks that don’t know waiting child lists are child that are available for adoption but that for various reasons have been designated to have a “special need”. In our case we choose to bring home a would be 7 year old girl with albinism. She had pure white hair and bright blue eyes. Within another 6 months in 2006 we brought her home after 2 weeks in country. Again for various reasons the children go into the orphanages with basic zero history so birthdays and even ages are often guessed. We figured out later our beautiful daughter was actually 5 not 7, but other than not seeing very well and needing lots of sunscreen she was ours!!
Finally we caught the itch again in 2008 and bought home a 4 year old boy also with albinism. This time he had strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes. Again we spent a number of weeks required for more paperwork and saw a few sights before going home.
The adoption didn’t stop there, most do there were 2 more adoptions for 2 other provinces in China that my wife’s sister also did in 2005 and 2007. So at least one of us jumped the pond every year for 5 years.
Today we have 14, 15, and 17 year old children that continue to amaze us everyday.