LID

More exciting news....news I wasn't expecting so soon.....we are LID.  Logged In Dossier.  That basically means that the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) has our paper work logged into their system.  With most adoption agencies once you are LID you become eligible for a referral......however with our adoption agency you must also have a conference call with your country specialist before this can happen.  Our conference call with our China worker will be on Thursday, March 27th!!!  After that call......we will wait for our referral!!!!!!!!!  I am completely blown away by the fact that we could be weeks away from seeing a picture of our child!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!  So here is a quick breakdown of how it works in China for the Special Needs Program.......

For families who are adopting a child with a minor or correctable special need (like us) your referral will probably come from the "shared list".  The shared list is an active list that the CCCWA keeps for agencies all over  the world to pull from.  It is electronic....highly protected.....and updated about every month.  At any given moment there are 1700 to 2000 children on this list who are eligible for adoption.  For a child to be added to this list a search for the child's birth family is completed, followed by a period of time when the child is available for domestic adoption in China. If a family is not found the child's paperwork is prepared and ultimately sent to the CCCWA where they will review it and then post it to the shared list.

The majority of the kiddos on the list have significant special needs or are older children.  Younger children or children with minor needs tend to be matched very quickly and do not stay on the list very long.....I've heard as little as 40 children on the list are considered to have "minor or correctable" needs.  So each month the CCCWA uploads new files of children to the shared list and on that day agencies all around the world keep very careful watch to match their families as quickly as possible before these children disappear off the list!  The matching can literally be done within seconds!!!!  If we are not matched we will then wait until the following month when the shared list is updated.

Please pray for us as we wait.....pray for our children as they wait....and please PLEASE pray for our sweet China worker as she prepares to match us with our precious child.  Brett and I both are resting in the truth that ultimately God is sovereign and He is in control of who becomes the newest Gleason. We are so thrilled to be one HUGE step closer to meeting Baby China!!!!!!!