Ni Hao!! (that means "Hello")

Hi there!

I'm Tina (and that's my husband Chris), and this is a journal of our adoption of a little girl from China. We are going to call her Saiya when she arrives, so I will refer to her by that name throughout this blog. We have only just begun the paper chase to send a dossier to China, so we are still in the very early stages of the adoption process. Our intake interview was last week (July 7, 2009). We are very excited and hope that you enjoy this journey as much as we do!

This Blog is as much for her as it is for us. For her, I hope that someday she will look back at this journal and really see how excited we are to have her join our family. We hope that she can look back at this time and remember how she felt and the challenges and adventures we experienced together. For us it is an outlet to help pass the time in the waiting game. This is a long process and we are only at the very beginning... Almost two long years ahead of us.

We have chosen to go through China Adoption With Love, Inc. as our adoption agency. This particular agency came highly recommended by several close friends who have adopted children from China. We have spoken to the agency on several occasions and each time we are more and more assured that we are in good hands. So far we have gotten together the majority of the paperwork required for our USCIS application and homestudy. We are currently waiting for our social worker to complete our homestudy (which we hope will happen by the end of August).

We are looking for a girl between the ages of 4 and 6. Because we are looking at a six year old, we are automatically put on the "waiting child/special needs" list. Hopefully this will help with the wait time a little bit. Also, we are more than happy to take a 4 or 5 year old with minor scars or marks. So, again, this should help with the wait time. We are so excited about this whole process!! I've already started to get the guest room converted to a child's room, much to the dismay of many friends who sometimes spend the night... I guess there is something unnerving about being stared at by cute, cuddly teddy bears while sleeping! Haha!

So follow my Blog and enjoy the pictures and news of our adventure with our new Chinese Daughter!