10, 9, 8, 7...

As with any dramatic space shuttle launch, the countdown is what most people see.  To the folks in the Mission Control Center, it is the result of months of tireless work, not just a dramatic 10 second countdown.  For the astronauts, the countdown marks the next phase of what will be the most important part of their work, the mission - their entire reason for all the preparation.

Adoption is a similar experience.   There are fire, explosions, and lot's of paperwork.  You may feel like you're in zero gravity at times (due to the free fall of stress.)  What people see is our dramatic countdown, but we know whole story.  It is a story that started in 2008 when we decided to expand our family through adoption.  From that moment, it has been a constant goal with many milestones along the way.  In 2008 we chose an agency, which is not an easy decision as it is one you'll live with throughout the process.  You cannot just switch agencies without losing a lot of money.  For the record we have had a consistently good experience with our agency "Great Wall China Adoptions." Once you have an agency, you open the door to your entire life to nearly anyone who asks.  You gather a lot of information to build a dossier which is, more or less, a formal application packet for the Chinese government.  It contains personal details about you, your spouse, and your financials based on a number of interviews, home inspections, financial checks, background checks, etc.  It is essentially a profile of your entire life.

I don't say this to discourage anyone, quite the contrary. I'd encourage any of you with the heart for it to take on this mission.  Once your dossier is accepted,  the long hard wait begins.   For us, this was the longest part and the hardest part.  For us, this wait was nearly 4 years since we had begun.

On April 16th 2012, we received our referral!  The days since then have been the most exciting and fun.  We were able to call our girl by name and see her picture.  She was more beautiful than we could have imagined!  We also were able to buy clothes and decorate her room, which was a lot of fun. But most of all, we were finally able to let a wee little girl, who was a half a world way, into our hearts forever!

As we sit here today, we look back on all the work, stress, waiting, and wanting.  We also look back on all the prayers, support, encouragement, and genuine friendships that have carried us through it all.  We have seen God's hand in so much of this.  For example, we should have been away in the Caribbean the day we got Maisey's referral.  We should have waited 8 months, not 4, once matched.  We were planning to be away for a missions trip last week, but about a month ago we had to withdraw because we had to send our passports away to get out Chinese visas.  The timing was amazing because the week of the trip was the week we got our travel referral.  So let me end this post with a BIG thank you to God, and to all the friends and family who have help us through this process.  We can't wait to share the details with you, and have you all be part of Maisey's life!