Lauren is at The Social Welfare Institute of Xingyexian Town. She has adorable spikey hair like her daddy! She is said to be a deep sleeper, with a ready smile, laughs aloud, is restless and fond of imitating. OMG - this kid sounds just like her mommy already!

The one thing about waiting for a referral from the CCAA is that there's usually no surprises. Every month the CCAA sends out its matches and changes the "referred to" date on their system which is then reported back to all of us waiting. It's a "done deal" once that date in the box has changed. By the end of September the reports were that referrals were matched for families who were logged in up to 2-15-06. We were informed earlier this week that the CCAA box was officially changed to 2-15-06. We were really disappointed to not make the cut but were ecstatic about being "next in line" for the November batch.

I swear this next part is true: On Wednesday morning, I woke up and told Mike that I had a dream that there was a mix up and that the CCAA had actually done more referrals (in my dream up to 2-20-06) and that we had received ours. Mike's response: "yay right, keep dreaming". I almost had a nervous breakdown when I got the call from our agency Wednesday afternoon telling me that somehow we got our referral! This couldn't be a bigger surprise...for everyone. The rumor sites we frequent are going crazy, no one can figure out how we got a referral after the CCAA reported a 2-15-06 cutoff.

Our birthdays are this month, so we can only chalk it up to divine intervention and that God wanted us to have the BEST PRESENT EVER!


AN INVISIBLE RED THREAD CONNECTS THOSE WHO ARE DESTINED TO MEET REGARDLESS OF TIME, PLACE AND CIRCUMSTANCE. THE THREAD MAY STRETCH OR TANGLE BUT IT WILL NEVER BREAK.
~Ancient Chinese Proverb