Operation Tweetie Pie...

...has officially begun!

After months of discussion and research, we decided to investigate adopting a special needs child. We identified needs with which we felt comfortable and began looking at listings on the Rainbow Kids web site. We identified a child, sent a letter requesting permission to adopt, and last week received PA (preliminary approval) to adopt a beautiful little girl who is currently 16 months old and residing in a social welfare institute in the Jiangsu province of China!

We have a bit of a wait ahead of us for the formal LOA (letter of acceptance) from China, during which time I'm experiencing nesting and a healthy dose of anxiety over our abilities as first-time parents. There is sooooo much to be done! Luckily we purchased furniture and some of the larger items (high chair, car seat, stroller) when our dossier was sent to China, so we can concentrate on the finer details--making sure her needs are catered for, choosing some nice developmental toys and making our house baby safe. We are over the moon at the prospect of becoming parents!!

There's been a bit of debate on a certain purple site about those who switch from NSN to SN. Personally, I do believe that if the wait were not so long we would not have had the opportunity to consider switching. But as we talked about the possibility we realised that the reason we chose to adopt was to give a home to a child who might not otherwise find a home (as well as to become parents, obviously). And at this moment there are so many waiting children in the SN program. We feel that switching to SN is more in line with our original intentions. We have thoroughly investigated the special needs of our daughter as well as the most common undisclosed needs. For us, this feels like the right thing to do, but not all families are in a position to take on known needs. Each family must be at peace with their decision, and we are with ours.