DTC....Dossier To China, September 13, 2013!  A huge step forward in our current adoption.  We are officially a waiting family!  While this is such exciting news, it is also the beginning of the unknown.  The "paperchase" is a busy time in any adoption, a time where you are busying yourself with all of the sometimes overwhelming processing of documents to prepare them for their final submission to your agency.  Once it is all done, the busyness suddenly halts and you are left to a quiet time of questioning when your little one will be revealed.  Let me reminisce....

Our Colin....I took pregnancy test after pregnancy test, all negative, all within days of each other.  We went on our annual beach trip and I specifically remember an afternoon walk with my sister and mother where I told them something was definitely not right and I was going to go to the doctor upon our return home.  Of course, on our drive home, Ryan and I made one last stop at a drugstore to purchase yet another pregnancy test, we even debated on buying one or two and decided two would be best since we just knew it would be negative.  The following morning, I took the test and it was positive.  Finally, the answer we had been anticipating.

Our Pryce....in many ways he was our "surprise."  I just knew that it would take me forever to get pregnant with our second child - no reason for me to suspect this but for whatever reason, it was set in my mind.  However, with cereal cravings galore, I decided early one morning that a pregnancy test was in order.  I didn't even tell Ryan my suspicions.  With Ryan at work, Colin and I set out on an early morning WalMart run, purchased a test, and boom, there was Pryce, our joyful surprise.

Our Mason-Kate....we completed our paperwork for a healthy child under the age of 12 months in October, 2006.  At that time, we were told to expect to wait 14-16 months for a referral.  So we settled into life in the present and prayed for our daughter.  10 months into the wait, we realized our expected wait time would be much, much longer.  In fact, 7 years later, we would STILL be waiting for our Mason-Kate had we not switched to the waiting child program.  We switched in November, 2007, and we were matched with our MK just 5 weeks later.  The call came late one afternoon, a call that I missed.  The message from our agency stated that they had a question about our application and to please call them in the morning.  I honestly thought they had a question and I was anxious to answer it so we could be matched with a child.  With that in mind, I called them first thing the following morning.  No answer.  I was playing tennis and a friend said, "I bet they have a child for you!"  And I shrugged it off thinking there was no way they had a child for us yet, it had only been a few weeks since our change in programs.  The call finally came around lunch and our beautiful MK was referred to us, a day I will never forget.  She was 10 months old and waiting for us in China!

Our Maddox....Maddox's story parallels Pryce's story.  We began the paperwork to adopt and we calculated that the process from start to finish would take 2 years.  We began in May, 2010, sent our dossier to China in September, 2010, and miraculously got a call in the middle of the night in September, 2010, that our daughter was waiting for us in China.  We held her in our arms for the first time on March 13, 2011, just 10 months after we began the entire process.  A sweet surprise!

So I write all of this to say that we are in that phase of the unknown.  We know our paperwork is in China and we know we will likely get a match in the upcoming months.....but when?  We have NO idea.  And I will admit that I am not a fan of the unknown.  Maddox reminded me last night to relish in today and look forward to what is to come.  She shouted, "I am a FAN of God's PLAN!" So we wait and pray for our precious little one in China while we trust in His plan for our sweet Mary-Gentry.  We can't wait to know your face and hear your laughter and wipe your tears.  Our prayer for you today is that you know love and that your heart is being prepared for your place in our family!