We had often talked about adopting another girl so Anna has someone to grow up with. Unfortunately, with China adoption, we could not specify certain age and we did not think we could have enough energy to add an infant to our family. We checked a few times with waiting children with special needs, but did not find any suitable child for us. Short before Anna turned 7 in April, our friends in adoption, Gigi and Keith Morgan brought home a baby boy from Ethiopia. As we checked more into Ethiopia Adoption, we learned that we could request a girl with specific age. As we read more about Ethiopia Adoption, our hearts were so drawn to Ethiopian children and culture. We felt that we have found our way to adopt an older girl. We filed our application to Ethiopian Adoption in April through Children Home and Family Society in Minnesota.

However, things did not work out the way as we planned, but in some way better. On May 13, 2007, while we were in the midst of doing paper work for Ethiopia Adoption, we received a phone call from the same adoption agency telling us that there was a special need child from China who met our requirement. She is on special need children list because she has a deformed ear and potential loss of hearing on that ear. Her photos and paper work were immediately sent to us. It was love at first sight. We experienced the joy of becoming parents once again and accepted the referral. She is exactly one year younger than Anna. She lives in Hohhot Children Welfare Institute right now. We sent in our letter of intend to adopt this child. We switched our paper work and redid our home study. We finally received our pre-approval on July 13^th. On September 14^th, we sent our documents to China and our case was logged in on September 17^th with Center for China Adoption Affairs – the government agency that handles all China adoptions. On December 7th, we sent a care package to her including a small photo albums of her future family. On December 14^th, we received our letter of acceptance. Right now, we are waiting for our travel approval and hope to pick her up sometime in January 2008!

Xinxin Wang
DOB: 4/24/2001
Hohhot
Inner Mongolia, China

Click here for more Referral Photos

Dates:
04/10/2007 - Application
05/23/2007 - Referral
07/16/2007 - Pre-approval
07/21/2007 - Home Study
08/20/2007 - CIS Approval
09/11/2007 - DTC
12/15/2007 - LOA
12/31/2007 - TA

Itinerary:
1/18/2008 - Detroit to Beijing
1/22/2008 - To Hohhot
1/29/2008 - To Guangzhou
2/3/2008 - Back Home