Travel Invitation!

I was so excited to see the UPS man drive up yesterday while my mom, Kara and I were setting up for my garage sale. I received my travel invitation for China, one of the last steps in my adoption. Funny, I was excited, shaky and almost in tears when I saw him pull up. I just can't believe that in 6 days I will be getting on a plane with my sister and my life will be changed forever.

I never planned my life to turn out this way. I never thought that I would be 38, single and childless. You dream of marrying your soul mate and having kids by age 38. That just wasn't what God had planned for me. I have had a lot of learning experiences in my life that have only made me a stronger woman, that is why when I turned 35, I decided to start the adoption process. I knew that if I wasn't married, I still wanted to have a child and I wanted to have a little girl. I have 3 nephews that I love dearly, but it was time for some dresses, bows and Barbies in the Kozlowski family. I have always had a fascination with the Asian culture and I knew that if I adopted I could have my little princess. After much prayer and thought I started the process in January 2006. I attended an adoption meeting at Bethany Christian Services and after watching a video of a family adopting their little girl, I was in tears and knew that this is the plan God had for me. I was all excited to start the process only to find out that since I was single, I would have to wait until there were some many couples wanting to adopt from China before I could start. Disappointment set in! I waited 8 months and at the end of August 2006, I received the call that I could start paperchasing. Paperchasing is a term they use in adoption because you have so many documents to fill out and a ton of paperwork to do and it can take months to complete. Two weeks after I started the process my Social worker, Sarah, called and said that there are rumors that China was going to change their requirements for adoption and singles were no longer going to be able to adopt. What? Seriously? Fortunately, Sarah told me that I would have to get my paperwork and dossier into China by December 2006. Wow, that was only a couple months away and I had a ton of stuff to do. So the chase began...I did complete my paperwork and sent off my dossier to China and was logged into the official system on December 14, 2006. I had made the January cutoff date, whew!!!! They did extend the deadline into 2007, but I am so glad that I raced around and drove to Grand Rapids to be fingerprinted and drove to Lansing for the official seals for my dossier. I wouldn't have changed a minute of it. So now the wait began. In 2006/07 the healthy adoption program was moving along nicely and it took about 8 months to a year to receive a referral for a child. (A referral is a biography on a child, where they were found, the weight and measurements, their personality and their daily routine. You then get to review the referral with pictures of that child and decide if that child is a right fit for your family.) The process was moving and then....it started to slow down. Months passed and then a year and then 2 years and no referral. People kept asking when I was getting my child and I didn't know. Why was it taking so long? Good question. China has a one child policy because of their huge population, but after the earthquake many families lost their child and were allowed to have another. The following year the Olympics were in Beijing which halted the process even further. Ugh, the emotional roller coaster! I decided to change to Special Needs and increase my age range to 4 years old. I only wanted mild SN (special need). I began to receive referrals, but sadly had to decline them because they just weren't the right fit for me. On June 22, 2010 I received a referral for Pan Xinjuan. I had no red flags and no what if's...she was my daughter, my Emily! Praise God! Since my referral everything has been going along pretty smoothly and I am leaving in 6 days. I have been communicating with members of our travel group and can't wait to meet them and their children. I have heard that we will be traveling with 12 other families, can't wait!