This is the letter I wrote for our agency, which ultimately led us to Miller. Hope you enjoy it!
We began our race to Delaney with gusto. When we sent in our application to CCAI in November of 2001, we were confident we were going to break the China adoption world record for fastest dossier preparation. Homestudy agency? Check (Even before our application approval came back!) . Birth certificates? Check. Marriage license? Medical approvals? Check and check! All of our ducks were in a row and there they would stay. According to my very scientific guesstimations, Delaney would be home with us by the end of the following year...
On December 28 we had our first homestudy visit. We warned our two children to be on their BEST behavior. After much negotiating and bribery, they agreed. We met our social worker Cathy at her office / home. They charmed the socks off of her. They were polite, quiet, used their manners and their inside voices. All was well with the world. The next visit just Cathy and I met. I tried to remember everything we talked about so I could make "suggestions" to my husband Randy as to how he should answer her questions. Their visit went quite nicely as well. On the day of our last visit she came to our home. I cleaned from top to bottom. Our house had never looked so good! She was coming at 6 that evening, but I had everything perfect by noon. Needless to say, my children did not enjoy the rest of the day not being allowed to touch anything!! By the time Cathy arrived that evening, they were in rare form. My then 9 year old son Taylor told her we didn't have any rules in our house. The only thing he was not allowed to do, according to him, was touch his dad's beer. 6 year old Regan, not to be outdone, told her she frequently stayed up all night watching "South Park." (Anyone familiar with the show knows why this statement is alarming!) Neither of these things were true and we were absolutely horrified! Being the model parents we were however, there was not much to be done except assure Cathy that we did have rules. We agreed that Taylor staying away from beer was indeed a good idea, and when Regan admitted her bed time came much earlier than the late night showing of South Park, her gig was up!
Fast forward 4 months. After several 60 minute trips to Lansing for document certifications( the first time, I actually FORGOT the documents!), countless trips to the notary and the post office, we picked up our completed homestudy and began the pursuit of the I-171. With every passing day, I was convinced there was a vast conspiracy against us. My co workers thought I was nuts. My husband was sure of it. This is when I began looking for "signs." I began scanning the local newspapers. I convinced myself that if I saw an article on international adoption, that would be my positive sign. Nothing. I thought perhaps I was being too specific. I would be satisfied with an article on any sort of adoption. Nothing. Okay, I would be satisfied with a PARAGRAPH about adoption.... a sentence containing the word adoption?..... china?....daughter?.....AHA! Nickelodeon was showing an episode of "Wild Thornberry's" and they were in China. Liza was saving a Panda. There was my sign. I was just looking in the wrong place! Sure enough, our I-171 came in , the dossier went to CCAI, and was received in China on July 11, 2002. Hurray!
Like most waiting parents, I discovered Yahoo groups. I joined every one I could that had anything to do with China adoption. Every morning, noon, and night, I was searching for hints as to when our turn would come! I loved watching the "REFERRAL....." posts come along. Every single one of them made me cry. At times it seemed the need to hold Delaney in my arms became a physical pain. As the months ticked by, we started hearing things on the news about SARS. I was worried. I knew she would be born by now. Was someone around her ill? Was she ill? What safeguards were in place? There were a million questions and zero answers. All we could do ..was....wait....
The beginning of June, my children finished up the school year. The rest of the month flew by. We had concert tickets on July 3 to see Cheryl Crow.We were going with 2 other couples, one of whom had adopted a beautiful daughter, Lian, from China the year before. On July 2nd, I was feeling a little off. I had a cold coming on, but was still planning on attending the concert. I decided to check some of the groups to see if anything was happening. I saw a single REFERRAL!!! post on our July DTC group. I went numb. I checked the other groups, but there was nothing. Randy and I sold our concert tickets that afternoon. There was no way we were doing anything until our referral came! July 3rd. Several other referral posts were slowly trickling in. I made sure our phone was working properly and dared anyone to touch it. We went to bed that night very disappointed. Saturday morning, July 4th. Everyone we knew was calling to see if we had heard anything. My husband decided to go into work to pick up a few things. He hadn't been gone long when then phone rang. It was THE CALL! I couldn't believe it. It was finally here. Jiang Xiao Liu was a healthy baby from Guigang SWI, in Guigang City, Guangxi province. She had just turned 1 three days prior on July 1st. I felt guilty for missing her first birthday! We were emailed pictures right away. Waiting for the pictures to download was agonizing. My children and I watched with little patience until we finally saw a line of black hair, and then another, and then her eyes, and finally her whole beautiful face. She was gorgeous, she was perfect, and she was ours! We left on August 26th to bring Delaney Liu home. Although we were sad to be away from our older two for 16 days, we couldn't wait to get to China. We were assigned to group 517, and I cannot say enough about them. They are the most wonderful, caring, thoughtful people we have ever had the privilege to know. Sharing this experience with them made it all the sweeter. The day we met our daughter for the first time, our "gotcha" day, was September 1st, 2003. We had stared holes through her referral pictures for the previous 6 weeks and memorized every feature. But nothing could have prepared us for the miracle we were blessed with on that day. Thank you CCAI for helping us on our journey to Delaney. She is our dream come true!
