Introducing Emery Jia Yu!!!!!

Introducing our new daughter

~~ Emery Jia Yu~~

Born April 6, 2011 in Kunming China!!!

I know many of you are aware that we had to let our first referral go because of some very bad health information that we received from China as an update. Because the information was so significant and because this was our 5th child, we decided her condition was too much for us and we had to let her referral go. It was excruciating and I grieved her loss heavily. Just FYI, she has now been matched with a new family and they are well on their way to adopting her and will probably get her this summer!!!

About 3 weeks after we had to give up the referral, we got a call from our amazing China coordinator who asked us about a referral for a super tiny baby. I had not thought about a very young one but when I heard the details, we were smitten. Turns out, this little baby was only 6 months old when we spoke (she is now 8 months old) and her special need was a mild heart murmur. She was in foster care and in a great orphanage program. I was shocked these babies were even out there and once we finally received the file, we could not believe that on top of all those wonderful things, she was ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE and we fell in love with her immediate!!!!

 

We had our friend who is a cardiologist look at her file and he said her heart murmur will probably be closed by a year if not 18 months and that she looked great!!! We were thrilled and our agency proceeded to basically put a hold on her for us. The difference with this little one as opposed to many other special needs children in China is that they required us to already have our paperwork in China with a log in date before we could accept her referral. Basically the agency had 2 months to place this child or the baby would go back to CCCWA (China Adoption Center). So what many agencies do when these little ones come available is that they look at all their families who can have their dossier to China within the 2 months and then they match the child with the family who is closest to dossier to China. Well, in this case, we were the closest family to being dossier to China so that is why we were able to get her referral.

We are so in love with her and have chosen to name her Emery Jia Yu! Her given name is Long Jia Yu so we are keeping Jia Yu (like we did with Mia and Finley) and chose Emery which we really like!

So where we are in the process is that we have sent our dossier to China and our log in date is 12-28-11 and our Pre-Approval from China is on 1-3-12 (we got Finley's Travel Approval-TA- last year on 1-3-11-- kinda cool) so we are now waiting for our Letter of Acceptance which should come in about 2 months-- 60 days + or -. Then we wait about another 2 months for the rest of the process which should put us in China in about late May/ early June which is perfect for my work schedule since the school year will just be ending.

When I first saw Emery I thought she looked so familiar and then I finally realized she looks a lot like Mia's referral. Actually, the picture below is really poor but they do look a lot alike-- look at their nose and lips and little round faces-- and even hairline. Totally a trip. She is a southern petite girl like Mia so they probably will look a lot alike.

Here is a comparison

Anyway, we are thrilled and know the next 5 months are going to take forever but hopefully we can get her soon!!

Thanks for everyone who has been so supportive with prayers and donations of clothes for Emery. We never expected to start all over with a 1 year old but she should be about 13 months when we get her so we will have to stock back up with the diapers and little baby things-- glad I didn't get rid of the high chair :)

The kids are all thrilled and so are we. God is good!!!!