If you don't know the whole story

Let me take a moment and remind you of how we came to adopt Penny, or where "fictitious" Penny came from rather.

Back in 2005, we decided to adopt a child. A, "one" child! After much research, we decided on China. We applied for a healthy baby girl, ages 6-12 months. We decided to name this child Penelope Ray, after my mom and dad. Mind you, this child is "fictitious," as your child might not have been born yet. People tend to think, that what the age of the child is when you get them, you've been waiting for that particular child, for that long. 3 years old, 3 year wait, not the case. Ok, back to the story. As the wait went on, it got longer and longer then what our agency anticipated. The year we chose to do this, is when the slow down started to happen. There was much speculation for why the process was at a stand still, and I'm talking like stand still, tumble weeds, the sound of the wind and hawks squawking in the background, zip, ziltch, nada, nothing. So we wait, and we wait, with no reasons or end in site.

We decided to again, to look into domestic adoption in May 2007. We found a great attorney agency, recommended by a friend.
We signed on with them immediately. It took about 2 weeks to get all our info switched over to domestic adoption, mind you, we still have China going. At this time we're estimated another 2 years for China. We got the call from our domestic agency, 2 weeks later, "we've been chosen by a birth mother." OMG. That week June 15th, Samantha Jackson was being born.

In Oct. 2008, we decided to switch over to the Waiting Child adoption program in China. After researching all the medical conditions on the check lists, we elected a bunch of conditions we were open to, switched to up to 4 yrs old and either gender. It was a tough decision, since 2005, I had a picture in my mind of my little Chinese baby. Letting go of that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. I really never got over it. OBVIOUSLY!!!! After about 3 weeks of the switch, we received Felix's file. We had the file, before a picture, which is better. The we got his pictures, what a cutie. We were in. We went to adopt Felix in Zhengzhou, China in Feb 2009, during the Chinese New Year. BTW, fireworks are non stop for 2 weeks of the celebration. And they are not the type that we are use to here, they are basically bombs. I think they stopped from about 3am-7am.

In the summer of 2009, I got the bug........I started on the boards again, realized I needed my Penny. You start talking with these crazy selfless people that adopt child after child w/ major medical conditions, it's insane, they are angels. We signed up AGAIN. This time we went right into the Waiting Child program. I have the best husband BTW. We were actually placed w/ Penny before we started the paperwork. While on the yahoo group to my agency, someone had recommended I view this little girls file, cleft lip/palete, 17 months old. I called my coordinator, she said "yah, this little girl is perfect, I can't believe she's still on the list." As soon as I saw her picture, I knew it was her, chills up the spine and everything. I could have cared less, if she had any other medical conditions then the clefts. Luck for us, that all we're dealing with. So here we are today, getting ready to go get our Penny.