We are the Thomas Family-Nathan, Kaitlyn, Weston(7), Brooks(5), and Cora(3)-and we are in the process of bringing home our daughter Rosie(21 mths). This will be our second adoption from China. We knew after bringing our first daughter home in Spring 2015 that we would adopt again. During the summer of 2016, we started to talk more seriously about it, and by the end of July we were ready to move forward with our home study. Our plan was to take the process slowly and hopefully be matched with our child by the summer of 2017. We laugh about that today, because we see now that God had a very different plan for the timeframe in which our family would grow! The day we said "YES" to Rosie, we committed to getting to her as fast as this process will allow. Rosie was born with congenital heart disease and is in need of surgery. Because of this, we are working to medically expedite her adoption in hopes of getting her home for surgery quickly. On top of these medical needs, Rosie was recently moved from her orphanage to a medical foster home, where it was discovered that she is also very malnourished. They are now working to help her gain weight so that she is ready for surgery, all while we continue pressing on through the paperwork and lining up the care she will need upon arriving home. UPDATE 11/30/16 The last two days have been really really hard but early this morning, we received an email that said "On Tuesday, December 6th you will take custody." You see, Rosie was moved back to her orphanage from Morningstar this week and ever since we have been fighting to get to her as soon as possible. Despite many setbacks, this morning, we got this good news. We leave for China on Saturday and this trip will not be easy. Since we are taking custody early, Rosie needs to stay in China until December 29th. Nathan, the boys and I will fly to China together and then Nathan will return home with the boys ten days later while Rosie and I stay in China another 2.5 weeks to complete her adoption. This was never part of our plan but when we began this process we made a promise-that we would do whatever we possibly could for our daughter. And this is it. We're booking flights and packing like crazy…3 days until China! UPDATE 1/11/17 THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO GAVE TO HELP BRING ROSIE HOME! We are home at last, settling in and preparing for her open heart surgery at the end of January.
