We spent a lot of time in prayer over this monumental decision. Adoption was often spoken of in our household, and the boys were aware that Mom and Dad still wanted to adopt a little girl. Slowly, over the course of several months, their ideas about adoption started to change. Their reasons for not wanting a little sister were varied (most of them involved an aversion to "girly" toys, dolls and clothes!) but mostly, I think, the boys were uncertain about adopting a child from another country.

During the summer of 2003, our older boys began helping in the '2 and 3 years-old' class at church, and played with one little girl who had been adopted as an infant from Korea. Shortly thereafter, our oldest and youngest sons became great friends with boys who also had been adopted from Korea as infants, and as those relationships grew, the our children's attitudes began changing. All of a sudden, it seemed the idea of having a sister born in a different country wasn't so unthinkable.

This process took years, but one day, in December of 2004, our prayers were answered when the boys brought up the subject of adoption and asked us if we could go ahead with it. Together, then, our family plunged into the world of international adoption. After researching adoption agencies, we settled on Great Wall China Adoptions and began to “paperchase” in March of 2005. Our dossier was sent to China in July and we received word back from Great Wall that our Log In Date (LID) was July 20, 2005.

Thus, the waiting phase of our journey began. What began as a relatively quick process (6-8 months from LID until Referral), stretched out to more than 13 months. The wait, at times, was excruciating, but the moment we got "the call" from Great Wall, and saw Katie's darling face for the first time, we knew it had all been worth it.