First Look

When the pictures came up on our computer screen, I could hardly believe those were they eyes of "our" daughter!!!! There she was - the child in our thoughts and hearts for so many years finally had a face! How my heart soared! I immediately forwarded the pictures and medical files onto Nate at work. He was so excited! We read that Gang Hao Mei was found on July 23, 2009 abandoned outside a gate where she was found and taken to the Maoming Maogang SWI orphanage.
That evening we were in touch with our pediatrician who works with families adopting internationally. From everything she could see from Gang Hao Mei's medical forms, it looked like her congenital heart disease was a minor heart murmur that very well may correct itself! We were blown away. We were prepared for heart surgery - from the medical condition form we had filled out in our initial adoption paperwork going with Holt's Child of Promise option. Holt International's Child of Promise is a checklist of "minor" correctible conditions families may be open to that expedites the time it takes for a child to be placed (we had heard that standard processing time through China was five years and growing, while families choosing to go with the Child of Promise were often matched within a year!). Now, it is still possible that when we bring Gang Hao Mei back to the states, she may still need to have heart surgery to correct her heart murmur, but from what our doctor can tell from the report, it looks like she is one pretty healthy, little girl:) How incredibly blessed we feel!
That night it was hard to go to sleep. We must have scanned over Hao Mei's pictures hundreds of times:) We have a daughter! I still can hardly believe it! I can't wait to meet her! Again I am reminded though that God's timing is "always" perfect. So, when I find myself growing anxious and wanting to get over to China to get her, I know that even in this "waiting" phase, God is in control and His timing will be right!