Introducing...

... our daughter, Hu San Ping!

                                                              (photo from October 2010)

We received a call from our agency, CCAI, early in the evening of a very crazy day (our oldest was sick with an ear infection, so we'd been to the local "minute clinic" and then to the pharmacy, arriving home after 6 PM and not having started dinner yet - you know how it is...).  In all the mayhem I happened to check the voicemail and there was a message from Judy at CCAI telling us about a child's file they wanted us to consider.  I didn't even finish listening to the entire message - our agency's main office is in Colorado so I knew if I called back quickly enough I'd be able to speak to someone before they left for the day.  I got through to Judy and she told me about Hu San Ping, a little girl born on January 20, 2010, in Henan Province.  Her special need is cleft lip and palate.  Minutes later, an email containing her pictures and basic information appeared in my inbox, and I had my first glimpse of our new little girl.  She was beautiful in spite of the fact that, at the time the photos were taken, she hadn't had any treatment for her cleft.  I called Tom and forwarded the email to him at work.  We both fell in love with her cute smile.

There was a little bit of ambiguity in her medical information, so we consulted with some specialists and asked our agency if they could get us any updates.  The specialists were very helpful, and our awesome agency was able to obtain more recent growth information as well as precious new pictures of her beautifully-repaired cleft lip.  We decided to accept the referral, which involves writing a letter to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (the main government agency in charge of all China adoptions) detailing what we've learned about her special needs and how we plan to care for her.  A week later, we received our "PA" (pre-approval) from China, which states that they've agreed to move our dossier from the standard adoption program to the special needs program - meaning that we will be allowed to adopt this child.  So now we can post her picture on our blog, send her a care package, and start buying lots of pink things.  :)  We hope to travel in August (maybe sooner!) to bring her home.  It is an indescribable feeling.