It's A Girl! No, It's a Boy!!!!!!

When most people think of children adopted from China, little girls immediately come to mind.  And yes, the vast majority of healthy babies abandoned and subsequently adopted internationally from China have been female.  A great book on the subject is The Lost Daughters of China:  Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past by Karin Evans.

We always thought that when our dossier was finally matched at the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) that it would be with a little girl.  It was only when the timeline for the process began to stretch far beyond what we had anticipated, did we begin to do some soul searching.  When our initial 22 month wait turned into 32 months we began to have doubts about continuing in the program.  We had invested so much of ourselves that we didn't want to give up, but estimates of 48 months or beyond were heartbreaking.  Even though we had never been in a rush, we had to decide whether an infant would be a good fit for us in four years time?  Jerry would be like 100 (alright slight exaggeration, more like 50) and would Emmett have the sibling relationship we had hoped for considering the age difference?

We felt strongly that adoption was right for us and decided to explore other options, which is how we discovered the Chinese Waiting Children.  These are typically children available for adoption that may be older or have mild to moderate special needs, sometimes corrected or correctable.  When I contacted my agency I was shocked to find out that about 50% of these kids are boys and that most waiting families still prefer girls.

Once Jerry and I talked about it we realized that a little boy closer in age to Emmett was probably the best fit for our family and in June 2008 sent in our application for the program.

After a few roadblocks we were on our way again and based on our preference for a boy we could expect to be matched in under a year.
CCF