Caroline Collins
Our
sweet Caroline Collins, whom we will call Collins, is *seven* months
old and living in southern China in the same province that Lia Kate is
from. We are so in love with our beautiful girl already and we can't
wait to travel to bring her home forever.
Here is the story of how we were matched with her...
We
have been waiting for 6 months now to be matched with our daughter. Our
dossier was logged-in in China on March 1, 2012, and we have just been
waiting for files from our adoption agency's new orphanage partnerships
to come in. But nothing really moves fast in the adoption world. We
thought the files would be here in July, but they weren't. Then, August,
but no. Then September rolled around and I was getting anxious.
On
Thursday, September 6, our awesome social worker, Karla, called and
said she might have a file for us. She told me a little bit about her. I
told her we were definitely interested and I asked how old she was.
Karla hesitated and said she needed to check and would get back in touch
with me. We were really wanting a young child (under 15 months) because
we want some space between our older two and the next one. When she
hesitated, I thought she might be older, but we were not going to pass
up looking at a file. That afternoon she called back and said she had
gotten the file together and was ready to send to me. She told me a
little bit about her and then said, "Now, hold on to your socks because
she is SEVEN months old!" I was in the car driving two sleepy children
to gymnastics, and all I remember saying was, "No way! Holy cow! No
way!" over and over. Seven months is *very* young for medical needs
adoptions from China. She told me she was emailing me the file right
then. I happened to be stuck in a massive traffic jam, so I checked my
email and there was the file. I opened it up, saw her sweet face and
started screaming. I immediately called Danny and told him I had just
seen our daughter's face. This is verbatim what happened when we got Lia
Kate's file. Danny is a little more even keel than I am, so he was like
"Okay, send me the file." I did. Then I texted our social worker back
and said "Oh, Karla. I'm done. She's the one. Hope my husband is on
board!". Just like with Lia Kate, I knew right away. No doubts.
Danny must have known too because he came home a little bit later with Chinese food and a bottle of prosecco.
 |
| The first picture I saw of Collins. |
We
sent her file to be reviewed by the International Adoption doctor who
had visited her orphanage in April and did a physical on Collins, and
waited for her to call back. Since we were going out of town bright and
early the next morning, I spent that night writing a care plan so that
our agency could send our Letter of Intent (LOI) as soon as we were
ready to officially say yes. I may have gotten about three hours of
sleep that night. I was just so giddy and excited. The next day at noon,
even though we hadn't talked to the adoption doctor, we decided to go
ahead and have our agency send LOI. We knew she was our daughter and
there was nothing the doc was going to say that would change our minds.
One
week later on September 13, we got our Pre-Approval from China. We have
a few more months of paperwork to get through before we can travel. We
are hoping to have her in our arms some time in December, but after
Christmas/January may be more likely. She will be 10 or 11 months old. I
can hardly believe it. Praising God for our sweet girl. She was so, so
worth the wait!!!
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