Rylie!

So....it's a girl! Well, we actually already knew that much, but now we officially have a face to look at!

Meet our new daughter!

Isn't she just beautiful? She was born on December 15, 2008 with a cleft lip and palate. Just before she was 2 months old, she was taken into custody of the Nanchang Social Welfare Institute in the Jiangxi Province of China. That’s all the details we have at this time, although we know she was found with a note. She had her lip repaired when she was 11 months old in a hospital in Nanchang City. She resides at the orphanage, where apparently she is doing ok. We have reports from January, when she was 13 months old….developmentally she looked great and her height and weight were both in the 50th percentile, which is fabulous for a child with a cleft palate!

She was given the name Hong Jia Hui. Hong, I am told may be the name of the orphanage director. It is also the name of the street the orphanage is on. Jia means beautiful and Hui means bright or intelligent. We haven’t settled on a final name yet. Rylie will definitely be her first name. We’ve always wanted to incorporate part of her Chinese name, but aren’t sure yet what we will settle on.

Here's another picture we were given.

This is a picture of her orphanage, the Nanchang Social Welfare Institute. From what I've read, it's one of the "better" orphanages. I am inclined to believe it though, based on her reports. She seems to be doing well, thriving and growing, which makes us feel so relieved. We feel confident someone in the place is lovingly caring for our girl!

You can see her province, Jiangxi, in the picture below. Nanchang is the capital city. It is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east by Poyang Lake,and is famous for its scenery, rich history and cultural sites. Owing to its central location relative to the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta regions, it is a major railroad hub in Southern China.(or so Wikipedia says!)

Here's a quick rundown of how this all happened. The non-special needs wait for Chinese adoption is out of control long. Like over 4 years long. That's just insane. About 3 or 4 months after we were logged in on the waitlist, we started to discuss putting in a special needs application, which we eventually did. The process changes a lot when you do this, so technically, we could have gotten a referral for a child at any time. But out wait continued. Eventually, we became a little more open to some other special needs, and upped our age range a bit. This made a world of difference. It's amazing what can happen when you open yourself up to God's plan and potential, instead of putting tight constraints on what you "allow" Him to do.

We saw Rylie's picture on Sunday night, May 23, 2010. Immediately we were interested in her. That night, we requested more information. We had her file the next morning. After a whirlwind day of researching, talking to doctors, talking to each other and praying, we knew.....this was our Rylie! I've always heard other people say that you just know.....but I wasn't sure I'd have that feeling. Well, I did. I will say it wasn't a 100% sure feeling the minute I saw her picture....but it was quick. It was also amazing...just as others said it would be.

So, that afternoon, I called our agency and requested to lock her file. We had a few days to submit our official Letter of Intent for her adoption to China as well as a few other pieces of paperwork. Then, we had to wait yet again, for the go-ahead from China. We received our Letter Seeking Confirmation (basically, a letter from the Chinese government confirming we are ready to proceed with her adoption) Tuesday, June 15, signed it, and overnighted a copy plus a bunch of other stuff to US Immigration applying for permission for her to become a US citizen. At this point, we are waiting on that approval. We have a few more hoops to jump through until we travel....we are thinking it will be sometime in October that we go get her and bring her HOME!!!!!!!

We are so excited and so blessed! God is so good!