Adoption Timeline - Part 2

I felt I (Midge) should pick up the story from here. When Bill first began seriously discussing adoption, to say I felt overwhelmed would be an understatement. I felt our family was complete. However, shortly after our move I began to feel God really "tugging" on my heart. Everywhere I went, it seemed adoption was always front and center. After some discussion, Bill and I committed to spend time praying about this, to see if it was God's plan for our family. It quickly became evident to me that this would be pleasing to God, and I felt so strongly that this child would be a blessing to our family. My heart quickly came into line with this plan, and as each of our older children responded with enthusiasm, it just confirmed this was the right direction for us.
As we began to fill out the applications and begin our paperchase, I became more and more convinced that we should look into a special needs child. However, the whole process of adoption was new to us, and we decided to just proceed with the traditional program, and later address the issue of special needs. We submitted our dossier in late June of 2007, and I just couldn't shake the idea that we were supposed to adopt a child through the waiting child program. In the fall of 2007, Bill and I filled out separate forms to determine what medical issues we felt we could handle. Then we compared notes. It took several weeks to come into agreement as to what was best for our family, but by the time we submitted our waiting child checklist I was absolutely convinced this was the right decision.
It was exciting to see how God began to put together all the pieces to this puzzle. When we were going forward with all our plans, we had no idea what the future would hold, but we went forward in faith believing God would work all this out according to His plan. We found out in April of 2008 we would be staying in northern VA for several more years, and then shortly afterwards that we would be able to purchase the house we had been renting for the past 2 years. Just after closing on our house in July of 2008, we found out on the opening day of the Beijing Olympics that we had even more to celebrate! Our precious daughter Michelle was a gift we could not even imagine. We can't wait to go get her, to make her part of our family, and to begin to help her become healthy, happy and whole in every way.