Introducing Eliza Rose Bao'er Grace!

We are over the moon and in love with our little girl! She is 18 months old and currently living in an orphanage in Nanjing, China but will be in our arms this summer!

Here's the story:

March 7, 2011: we officially switched to the Special Needs program after much consideration, soul searching, researching and a review of the list with a physician friend of a friend (thanks Amanda and Kathleen!). Our agency told us that we'd have at least a 5-6 month wait ahead of us before we were matched, on the longer end of the matching for SN once you switch programs. Longer?! We'd already been waiting 4.5 years so 5-6 months was nothing in our minds! It was within this moment that I was able to fully reconnect with the adoption because now it was back on a timeline and all my initial joy and excitement was back as well.

March 21, 2011; our first official "matching night": Even though we knew that there was no way we'd be matched in month one, I still found myself so excited as the day approached and then checked my email all throughout the night just in case. After that day we realized that even if we had longer than the 5-6 months for the match we needed to get moving on finishing the nursery (yes, two years later it still wasn't complete), planning furniture purchases, preparing our employers, etc., etc.

Matching night had been trending on the 3rd Monday of every month for several months. During the first matching night I was imagining our case manager Lyndsay and the other ladies of our agency sitting around into the wee hours working diligently to match their families. I wished I lived in the same state because I would have dropped off cookies or treats for them. But since that wasn't possible I planned to send them a box of candy that would arrive in time for matching night #2 which if the trend stayed true, would have been Monday, April 18th. But then Lyndsay let us know that it wasn't happening that Monday after all but would probably occur a week later. I complained to anyone who would listen that "oh sure, everything is predictable until we move into the program and then suddenly it is all an unknown!". :) So that Monday came and went and I simply waited for the next Monday to arrive.

Tuesday, April 19th: THE DAY I BECAME A MOM! I got back to my desk after a meeting and checked email as usual. One email that caught my eye was from someone whose name I didn't recognize having ever emailed me before (and it was only a first name). The subject line simply read "file" and there was an attachment. My first thought was "spam" so I quickly opened it anticipating deleting it soon after. And the first thing that I saw upon opening the email was the face of a Chinese baby. I didn't get it. At all. Then I read the note, it said:

Good afternoon Sharon,

I know Lyndsay sent you a thank you email but I again wanted to say thank you for the candy! That was so thoughtful! I was just on the CCAA shared list and came across this sweet little girl that I believe was designated to an agency and then just released because I have not seen her before. After I read her very positive growth report, I thought she may be a great file to share with you! Please let me know if you have any questions about her!

I had to read it several times and then I started shaking. Honestly, I don't think I have ever experienced a moment of complete confusion and shock like I had in those first few moments. What? A baby? It's not matching night. A baby? Maybe OUR baby?! I tried calling Walter (I think) and then I called two of my coworkers over to read the email for me because I didn't believe what I was reading. Their jaws dropped but they sprung into action telling me to print the files, that they would collect them while I called Walter. I don't even remember what I said when I reached him, or what he said when he read the email. I know he did ask if she was "locked in" and I said I was sure she was because the agency told us if they found a child for us on the list they'd lock her in right away. So I emailed and asked if she was locked-in and they wrote back quickly and said "no". OMG!!! NO? I wrote back a simple "lock her in!!" and then waited breathlessly to see if it was too late. But then the email came back that it was done, she was safe for 72 hours while we had the adoption clinic at Children's Hospital review her file.

When we sent the file to Children's they told us it would be Thursday before they could get back to us. I imagined the next 48 hours to be crazy hard. Wednesday around 3:30 I was surprised with a phone call from Children's! We spoke for an hour and the assessment was much what we anticipated which was all good news!

That night, Walter and I laid in bed and talked about it. Neither of us had any doubts and from the first second we read the file we had a really good feeling about it all. This was indeed our baby, our little girl!

Six weeks and one day from the time we made the switch. I'm pretty sure we broke our agencies record!