Friday, June 19, 2009

Starting the Journey

Here she is - the newest member of the Lyons family - June Heng Ying Lyons. This is our little girl waiting in China; she has just turned 3 years old. Are you kidding, you ask? Nope! We have made the decision to adopt and complete our family with this little girl. And no, I did not have to cast a spell on Tom, hypnotize, or otherwise incapacitate him in order to make this decision. When we saw her little face, we knew she was ours! She is diagnosed as having dwarfism - not the same type as Quinn's and more on that later - and is described as "active, restless" and "enjoys mimicking". We can't believe how beautiful she is. The paperwork will be crazy, the wait will feel endless, and the joy of bringing her home will be wonderful.



For anyone not familiar with the adoption process - it is a long one! Most people decide to adopt, proceed with a homestudy, and then wait for a referral for a child. We worked with an agency to specifically look for a child with dwarfism. When June's file was released from China, our agency sent us her information. We secured "preapproval" from China and her file was locked for us as we go through this process. Because we did not have a homestudy completed first, we are in that process now. We have lots of paperwork to complete, autobiographies to write, physicals to have done, references to be checked, etc. There is a lot to do, and it will take a while. We will not be traveling to China until sometime next year.

It would be an understatement to say that Delaney, Riley, and Quinn are thrilled about their new sister : ) I don't know how they will survive the wait! (Don't know how Tom and I will either, but there is a lot to do for right now.)



Don't want to overwhelm in this first post, just wanted to get the news out there!!