I have been hearing from people a lot lately that they keep checking our blog for updates but that there hasn't been one since February. Unfortunately that is the reality of the adoption process.We have been waiting as anxiously (if not more) for an update too. I promise that we haven't been holding back information from you. This is just part of the process, waiting, waiting, and more waiting.
That is until 3 weeks ago. Both my husband and I received a call (which we both missed) from our adoption agency late one afternoon. I remember being very excited and very scared to listen to the message. Unfortunately it wasn't the news I was hoping for. According to the adoption agency, China had contacted them requesting more information regarding the financial statement we submitted with our application. You might remember that we submitted our application to China in early February so I was disheartened to hear that they were just reviewing our file now. Thankfully after talking to our agency we found out that we had been verbally approved in China, we just needed to send some updated information regarding our finances. Both my husband and I contacted our employers for new letters of employment and changed a few numbers on our statement in order to prove to China that we would have enough money (through a bank loan or otherwise) to cover the adoption and provide a financially good life for our child.
After we submitted the documents I had a lot of questions. Most important was I wanted to know if this put us further behind in the process. Since this was the first we had heard from our agency in a few months we just assumed that everything was on track (up until now). Also, the last set of files that our agency received from China was smaller than usual. Meaning usually they would receive an average of 4 child proposals at a time. In March when the Children's Bridge newsletter came out we read that they only received 2 child proposals that month.
After a few days of phone tag my husband was able to connect with our adoption agency and get a few answers. For the first time in this entire process we found out exactly where we are on the list! We are currently second on the list. SECOND! Yes this is amazing news! That means that, fingers crossed, we could get a child proposal when the next set of files comes from China (in the next 2-4 months). Now of course there are a few reasons why we may not receive a proposal in the next round but we still celebrated the good news. If the next set of files does not include any boys we would obviously not be eligible for a proposal. Or if there is a boy but he is more than 18 months younger than our daughter we may not be eligible. The adoption agency did say that if the child proposal was for a boy that was only 16 or 17 months younger than our daughter that they could speak to the Ontario Government and see if it could be approved anyway (hopefully it doesn't come to that). So I am remaining cautiously optimistic that sometime between now and July we will receive a child proposal for our little boy in China! When I say cautiously optimistic I mean that until I wrote this post I didn't really let it all sink in. So right now I am a bit of a blubbering idiot.
My hope that is my next post will be some of the best news we have ever received....I will keep you updated.
