Getting everyone updated

Hi everybody! This is Emily! I am going to be keeping everyone up to date with the adoption of our adorable baby, Yang Nui Sha, Sha-Sha for short. We will name her Caroline Hope. She is almost 15 months old, and was born in Hunan, China. We hope to travel to China this summer to bring her home.

I'll try to give you some background on our process to bring Caroline home. We decided to try to adopt from China in July 2009, but since we have so many kids in our family, we didn't know if this would be possible. China has a policy that requires no more than five children in the home. However, after contacting many adoption agencies, we found one who would work with us. Great Wall of China Adoptions in Austin, Texas, agreed to join us on this journey, and our paperwork was filed at the end of July. Mommy and Daddy are pros at filing adoption paperwork since they have adopted seven times already, and things were moving quickly. Our paperwork was sent to China and our log-in date with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was 12/3/09. Strangely, this was the same date our paperwork was logged in with Annie's adoption in 2004!

Mommy and Daddy were on the computer all the time looking at kids with special needs. After viewing the files on three different children, and none of them working out, we were feeling a lot of doubt and sadness. But when we saw the round little face looking back at us on the computer screen and requested her file, we knew she was a match for us! Mommy and Daddy did a lot of research on her condition (she has a colostomy and a heart defect - VSD) and were sure we could handle taking care of her. So we filed the paperwork and waited for our LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation) which would be China's approval of our adoption of her. We were told to expect approval within 70-100 days. Our approval came in only 16 days!!!

We plan to travel sometime between mid-July/August to bring Caroline home. YAY!