so you want to know

We have decided to adopt a special needs child from China. The SN that we are interested in are very minor. In China SN consist of everything from a birthmark to Cerebral Palsy. Many of the children are in fact healthy. We get to choose the special needs we are open too. Some of the SN on our list are strabismus, Cleft lip and/or palate (repaired or still needing repair, Syndactyly (webbed fingers), VSD, Pstosis (droopy eyelid), Hearing Impairment, and birth marks. Most of these things are very minor. We are still researching some of the others on the list.
Now i bet you are wondering why China? When we first started looking into adoption we were drawn to China. The culture, the food and we were excited to travel there. China has an age requirement that both parents have to be 30. I was not 30 yet. Also the wait to adopt a healthy baby is 32 months. So we decided to adopt from Vietnam. They didn't have that age requirement. As you know that didn't turn out very well. When we found out that we didn't meet the deadline for Vietnam we started thinking about what we wanted to do. I had done some research on Korea and found an agency that could get us a child in about 6-8 months but we didn't have the option to travel and we had to start our home study all over. While we were in the process of doing research on Korea i emailed the social worker that did our Vietnam home study. She suggested we look into a few other countries and also the special needs program from China. I started thinking about it more and more and then talked to Tracy about it. I called our social worker and talked to her more about it and she got us in contact with a few agencies she works with. I also called a few more agencies. I talked at length to some of them asking them a ton of questions. Yesterday Tracy and i met with our social worker and decided to go for it! We have to update our home study to reflect the change in country and then we have to get USCIS (the former INS) approval again. We also get to travel to China to pick her up! We are so excited to do that. This just feels right for us. Korea was like our rebound country. Korea has a great adoption program where all the kids live with foster families instead of an orphanage but it just wasn't right for us. This just feels right. So we are now "expecting" a little girl from China!
Since we are part of the Waiting Child program there isn't a set time for a referral. It could be anywhere from 6-12 months from the time we submit our waiting child application which will be sent as soon as our updated home study is completed. So hopefully by mid to late October we should be on the list! Once we accept a referral we will get an invitation to travel in about 4-6 months later. So anywhere from 9-18 months we will be a family of 3!