During this time, I received a call from a woman I had come to know over the telephone who was with my same agency and working on her documents for China. She also lives in Phoenix and has 3 little boys. She had completed her dossier at the end of May and was very discouraged about what was happening with the wait time. She told me how she had come in contact with an agency called VORF who had recently become a placement agency for the country of Vietnam. After contacting them, her and her husband made the difficult decision to revise some of their documents and submit their dossier to Vietnam through the VORF agency. They received a referral for a 2 month old baby girl the first week of July! It was unbelievable!
Knowing the wait that lay ahead of us, Doug and I began discussing whether or not it was in our family's best interest to consider switching countries. We gathered information, made a bunch of phone calls and prayed over the matter. Looking at the numbers alone (meaning dates and wait time, money, etc.) it would have been a reasonable decision for us to switch to the Vietnam program. But, there was more involved....the biggest thing was our heart! Our heart was in China, it had been from the very beginning. We just knew, and still know, that our daughter is there!
When I think back at that time when we were considering whether or not to switch programs, I remember how the thought kept coming into my mind, "I don't care if we decide to adopt a child from Vietnam, but what about our baby in China?! We can't just leave her there! We are HER parents...she's there waiting for us to come get her. This just doesn't feel right." The wait for her has been one of the hardest things I have ever been through, but I will never, ever regret our decision to stay with the China program.
By September, my friend had brought her daughter home from Vietnam. She's a beautiful little girl who, I'm told, has a very sweet disposition. Her photo is posted below. Her name is Sarah!
1 comment:
It's hard to understand, but this was when I started feeling that Sugarplum was alive and waiting for you. That would make her almost 11 months now, which doesn't make sense. Maybe you have another daughter out there that will make it to your life sometime in the future. How bizarre it that thought?
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