Finding our son!

Brian and I spent a lot of time going through the children available for adoption, focusing in on the boys 3-5 years old.  After much discussion, we asked for more information on a little boy.  When reading all of his information, we decided his extra needs were more than we were prepared to handle.  Thankfully, the same day we regretfully said "no," another family selected him.  The second boy we asked for information about was Hai Xing.  After reading all the information, watching him on video, and having our pediatrician review everything, we informed Holt that we were interested in adopting him.  They had us fill out pages and pages (literally) of answers to questions about our motivation for adopting, especially an older orphan.  Then we had several phone interviews, with the social workers asking lots of questions and making sure we understood all that was involved with parenting an international orphan.  Finally, it was our turn at the Waiting Child Committee.  This committee meets weekly, to decide who is the best family for each child.  We had our final visit for our homestudy the same day of the committe meeting.  (Nov 24th)  We learned at noon that our homestudy would be approved (pending the child abuse registry clearance from Ohio, which hadn't responded yet), and then got the call at 2:45 that Hai Xing was ours!  What a great day!  Hai Xing just turned 5, though these photos were taken when he was 4.