The Journey thus far....

Sometimes I can't believe we made it this far! It has been such a long journey and at times we almost lost hope. The journey has been a long search for a daughter we thought was lost forever. Joy and I have 3 great sons. Blake is 23 and married, we are so proud of him, Jessica and baby Jenna. CJ is 17 and super smart. Josh is the Lady's Man and he is 16.

For many years after Joshua was born, we wished for a daughter. The first pregnancy came after Josh was 6 and we were soooooooooo excited. We had decided to call her Rachel after Joy's mom and we were busy creating a nursery and making plans for her. Then the unthinkable happened. At a regular OB visit, the doctor sent Joy for an ultrasound. Her hormones had started to level off and the technician would not tell us anymore. All they would said is "you will have to wait to see the doctor". We went to his office and sat together in shock holding hands and waiting for him to come in. He walked in, sat down and said, "well we can't find the heart beat, you can always try again". We were devastated and left thinking this is all a bad dream. That was miscarriage number 1 of several and finally we gave up.

We started talking about adoption and began researching China. We felt a spiritual connection and a desire to go there and bring a little girl home to our family. By now Josh was almost 10. Then on the day after Christmas 2002 I told Joy, I think you are pregnant. She said, you are crazy and didn't even want to take the test. She used to buy them by the gross, but we had long since quit keeping them around. I drove to the drug store, purchased the test and said let's go see! She took the test and said I told you it was negative. I looked at it and said you might want to get some glasses, I see 2 lines. I was right, she was pregnant!

The pregnancy was very hard. Joy started having contractions at 3 months. We made 9 trips to the hospital and stayed from 2-7 days each time. Finally on August 15th, she arrived almost 5 weeks early. Olivia was a 6lb.-13oz. angel straight from Heaven. We stopped talking about adopting and we were so happy to finally have a daughter.

Then when Olivia was almost 4, I came home and said what do you think about adopting from China. I had been praying and thinking about it for several weeks but had not mentioned it to Joy. She started to cry and said I have been thinking about it for months but didn't know what to say. We went back to our research and chose GWCA as our agency. We filled out the application and started the Dossier paper chase thinking we would adopt a new born.

As we neared the end of our Home Study, I started to think that we should look at a child from the Waiting Child list. We were getting older and the thought of diapers no longer appealed to me. The boy's are now almost out of the nest and that would leave Olivia as an only child with no sibling to grow up with. I registered for the Waiting Child Program and begin watching the agency lists. One day at work I took a break and was scrolling through a list when I just stopped cold. There she was and somehow I knew it all along. A beautiful little girl who was now 4. I went home that night and logged the computer on. I opened up the list and told Joy to scroll through and see if anything jumped out at her. There were almost 50 kids profiled on the site and Rachel was about 25 or 26 on the list. She scrolled right to her and just stopped and started to cry. She said this is our little girl. I reached in my pocket and pulled out her picture that I had printed out that day. We both knew it was her. It was the daughter that we had been looking for, for so long. She has lived in the Lianyungang SWI since she was 2 days old. She was left under a bridge when she was only hours old because she has a crossed eye.



It is now 2010. Olivia is 6 and Rachel is 5. We have received our LSC and sent all of the required paperwork back to China. We are anxiously awaiting our Travel Approval (TA) and hope to travel by March to get her.

The Journey has been long and there have been many times we thought it was impossible. We thought we would never finish the Home Study but somehow we did. We thought the Dossier would never be complete, but it is logged and approved. We worried about the cost of the trip and the adoption but God has provided everything that we needed just in time.

God's Mercy and Grace have brought us this far. He has shown us how big He is and that no problem is too big for Him to overcome. He gave us back the daughter that we thought was lost. We will soon have her in our arms and to Him we owe all of the Glory.

God Bless, Coy/Joy Graham