WE HAVE A NEW DAUGHTEER!!!!!!!!!!

It is with great celebration that we announce our referral of Fu Hai Xia. She is 30 months old and currently resides at the Jiaozuo Children's Welfare Institute in the Henan Province of the P.R. of China. She has a repaired cleft lip and palate. Her estimated birth date is December 25, 2005. She is beautiful and we hope to travel to make her our own in "Octoberish". Our hope is that travel will fall between Caitlin Birthday on Sept 19th and Thanksgiving.

We received her referral on the 12th of June. I had prayed I would be out of school so I could devote my full attention to the referral and I was. My dear friend Tracy and I were sitting on my porch watching kids play in the dirt when our call came in.

I had sent an email to our agency saying I thought I would like to decrease my age limit back down to 24 months from 30. But if the perfect little girl came along age was not a deal breaker. Pam, from CCAI called the next day and said "I need a hard and fast answer on age" I said "really, I don't want to do that". And then my overworked, on summer break, brain kicked in and said "why, why do you need a firm answer?"
"Well, I may have a very good reason why but I'm not telling you if you will have to say no beacuse of her age!!!!!!!!!"
"No age isn't that big of a deal, we are looking at development and severity...blah, blah, blah..."
The last thing I remember was her saying "SO, do you want me to call back with your real call!!!!"
Then I started yelling at my husband to get on the other phone, my girlfriend Tracy was in tears. And then of all things it took sooo long for her pictures to come through the email and Pam wasn't getting off the phone with us until we saw her pictures. I just love that woman. She knows us better than we know ourselves sometimes.
So for all of you still waiting. Trust the CCAI ladies. They will hang in there with you no matter what.
There are a couple families travelling to our Daughter's orphanage right now and we hope to get some more pictures of her. We only have 3, aside from the 2 lip and palate pictures. We have emailed a man named Brian Stuy who finds children's finding adds. The finding add is the announcement made in the local papers with the child's picture to attempt to give the birth parents one last chance to reclaim their child. Which of course would do them no good because they would likely be promtly tossed into jail and wouldn't get to raise their child anyway...
So we hope to get that in the next two weeks or so. At least that will allow us to have a picture of her as an infant.
She was estimated to be 5 days old upon abandonment and arriving at the CWI. What a start for her. It is truly a miracle that these children are able to live in the elements for who knows how long before they are found, taken to the police and then to the orphanages. Their little lives are protected and touched by God because only He knows where they will go in life. And this little one will bless our lives and be our second miracle baby!!

Oh, I almost forgot. Her name. Fu means good fortune or blessing. Hai means Sea, and Xia(/Sha/)means Rosy Cloud. We will be naming her Samantha Paige HiaXia.
Thnaks for following along with us...