Happy Year of The Rabbit!!!!

A year ago, we saw this photo for the first time. Our first photo of Teagan.


It was a Friday, I was at work when Sarah from CCAI called me and left a message asking me to call her. WHAT?! Why was she calling? She had told me, a week earlier, that we had another 2 years to wait  (despite waiting 4 years already)..... this is a long post..stay with me:)

I called Jason and we both feared that the program was maybe ending or something was wrong with our paperwork or.........   I was in tears. I called Sarah back. She was in a meeting.

All day.

I could not concentrate. I cleaned my office and even got out the vacuum.  A colleague jokingly asked if I was pregnant!  Little did we know, a "paper pregnancy" was about to start!  (she's the tiny one on the far left of photo in pink).

At 5 pm., Sarah called back and started our conversation with "Well, some things have changed since we last talked. Can I get Jason on the line?"

What?!

I had no way to tell him Sarah was calling about a referral before she reached him.


Where was Jason when he got the news?  In a grocery store parking lot.  With Catherine in the back seat. Through the entire call, Catherine sat in the back demanding to know the details.

In some state of shock, I demanded Sarah review the pronunciation of Teagan's name (Qian Jia Yue) no less than five times to make sure I could say it properly with the correct tones, before we learned anything else about her. Jason reports  banging his head against the dashboard  while waiting for Sarah to move on and tell us something about this little girl, while I babbled on about the 4 tones in Chinese.

She was 9 months old. Her birthday was in March, like mine!  Sarah (who also called us with Catherine's referral), sent us her photos and asked us to think about her file, do our research on cleft palate and her alleged hearing loss, and our ability to provide treatment, and call her back the following week.

My first research was to find an Irish girl's name that meant beautiful  - as Jia means beautiful. Teagan in fact means "beautiful."

When I came home, Catherine was walking around the house with Tegan's photo chanting "Jia Yue! Jia Yue!"

We had to wait a full month to make a public announcement about our decision. The special needs program process is different than the non special needs process. You cannot make a public announcement until the CC*A*A has approved you. In the NSN process, you do not get a referral before you are approved by the C*CA*A. In the special needs process, you are matched and then you ask the C**A for approval (I am putting in * to avoid it being picked up on Google).


Around that time, I learned Teagan (Little Peas) was being cared for by an amazing group of women and men at Angel's Home.

Of course, we told our parents. And, well of course, I had to share the news with some close friends and colleagues. And in fact, Jason shared the news and her photo with the "Drew Crew" before I even had a chance too!

We had the official approval by March 8th.

You might remember that I posted about the girl who is next to Teagan in this photo below?  JiaYi? Teagan and JiaYi came into Pingdingshan close together and our born 3 weeks apart. They then went to AH together.  I've been hoping JiaYi would be matched with her family since September when I realized she had not been adopted.

Good news!!!! She has found her family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOHOOO!!!!!  I know a lot of you are cheering along with me.  I am in contact with her mother now and am looking forward to following their journey.  I hope we can get the girls together one day and reunite them.  They are an hour and half flight away.

It's been awhile since I've done any blogging.

We went to Mexico in January, and promptly lost our camera on day 2 of the trip! We have a few photos from the disposable camera though. LOL! It's the best I can do.....

The trip was great - but too short!   We all need more rest!

The girls loved the pools - there were a lot of them!

Teagan especially was fascinated by the sand. She met a little boy, Alex, and they played together in the sand and water.

Yes, she is happy here! Really! 

Teagan seemed particularly happy with the fruity drinks that were brought to us on the beach.

Catherine and I took a great snorkeling trip - wish I had photos of that!

What are those clouds doing in the photos?! Well, it did rain 3 days of our trip!


Happy Lunar New Year to you all. The Year of the Rabbit is supposed to be a more peaceful year than that of the Tiger.....