Adopt China II

You may have noticed the new blog design and the addition of a new tab across the top titled "Adopt China II".  If you did then I'm sure you are wondering, what's up with that? Well since you asked, here are the deets on China II...

Towards the end of last year China made some changes in their special needs adoption program. Among the changes was the creation of a classification of waiting children called "Special Focus".  These are children who have been on the special needs waiting child listing for at least 2 months or kids who are deemed from the outset as especially hard to place. The other big change is families who have adopted from China in the past year have up to one year from their last adoption to reuse their dossier (adoption paperwork) to adopt a "special focus" child.  Although the changes occurred last fall, I didn't learn about them until just recently when another adoptive mom and friend mentioned it to me quite by chance at a party. She assumed I already knew because apparently EVERYONE in the China SN world does...last again.

Well better late than never.  I contacted our agency the next day and confirmed that we will in fact be able to reuse our dossier if we are matched with a child by May 31, 2011. 

Learning about this change felt like a sign from above. Over the past several months we have been trying to decide if we should adopt again and if so if we should return to Kazakhstan or China.  By far China SN was an easier, smoother and far less stressful program than Kazakhstan and on the surface an obvious choice.  But, there were compelling reasons to consider a return to Ust Kamenogorsk.  The truth is I had been paralyzed by indecision until now. But now I feel an incredible sense of clarity and peace and almost at the same moment it seems Dart's heart is once again wide open.  So we will not return to Kazakhstan and we will return to China....maybe.  IF we are lucky enough to be matched by May 31, 2011 then we will take it as a sign that it was meant to be.  If not, then it wasn't and we're ok with that too.

So that's Adopt China II.  A definite maybe... a little bit paper pregnant??   Only time will tell but we will not stress either way.  The one thing adoption has taught us is none of this, nothing in this life really, is ours to control.  It was a painful lesson to learn but we did, and once again we're putting it in His hands.