Waiting for Gracie

So, I've been told that it's time to start blogging again since we are really approaching time to receive our match from China meaning that we will find out who or baby girl is, where she is, how old she is, and anything else that is known about her! Gracie - we have known her first name for years. John and I both liked the name but over the years the word Grace has more and more meaning. Grace means, according to the dictionary, elegance or beauty and favor or good will. According to God's word, Grace is what we receive from Him because of what Jesus did on the cross for us - regardless of our deserving or non-deserving lives. We cannot earn God's grace; it is freely given to us. John and I have not done anything to deserve the gift of a daughter but we will be given the blessing and privilege of responsibility for raising her.

For those who don't know the history or how that works, here is the scoop:

About 5 1/2 years ago, we decide to explore the world of adoption after realizing that we probably weren't going to be able to have another child the old fashion way and we (I) really wanted a larger family. Along the way, John came around to wanting a larger family as well! :) As we started researching and considering adoption, I felt more and more lead to it. Although we didn't give up on the old fashioned way completely, we started to have a heart for a little girl in China who we did not know! We started our 'paper chase' in February of 2006. I won't bore you with all of that - lots of digging in files, meeting with a case worker, visiting government offices and 'we still have to do what?...' Finally, our paperwork was complete and ready to ship to China on June 14 and China officially accepted us as a 'waiting family' on July 14, 2006. Back then, the 'when will we get our little girl' time frame was 12 to 14 months from the time China accepted us. Here we are 5 years later and our wait time is nearing it's end and we soon will be celebrating the newest member of our family and all adjusting to life together.

How does it work? When China accepted us as a waiting family is called our log in date (LID). Everyone who is waiting for a little child, has an LID. Each month the Chinese officials take the list of babies available and the next batch of waiting families and match them in LID order. As soon as we were official, we started watching those matches each month and they started immediately slowing to an almost halt! They were matching about three days in a month's time. We quickly began to realize that if they kept up that slow pace, this was going to be a LONG wait! And it has been but we have loved that little girl and prayed for her and her birth family daily since then. Over the last year, China has been matching an average of about a week's worth of logged in families per month. Currently, they have matched through June 20, 2006 - only 3 weeks, 3 days away from our magic date!! We anticipate that we will receive a match around August of this year.

Receiving our match means that they will send us a profile and picture of a little girl who is available for adoption and then we have to accept. Once we say, 'yes, this is our daughter' we begin another paper chase to get ready to travel. We have to have US government approval to go get her and bring her home and we have to make the travel arrangements. This process will take 5 to 8 weeks. That seems like it will be the longest part of this wait to me but I hear that it's a whirlwind and goes by very quickly.