What Can I Tell You About Aneyah?

Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring you children from the east and gather you from the west. Isaiah 43:5

I am so very excited that we received our LOA on Wednesday and now I want to tell the story of Aneyah! Larry and I brought Katy home in August of 2007. We had 4 girls and thought we were done adopting. We even had the garage sale and sold everything that had to with a child size 3T and under because that was Katy's size at the time. Crib gone, kept only one stroller, you name it....gone. Then in March of 2009, my heart was tugged at to look at children on the special needs lists from China. I saw one child that I thought could fit into our family but the "big tug" you feel when you see your child wasn't there. For those of you that have adopted special needs and found your child on a list, you know what I mean by a tug. Then on a Friday in April, I saw her. On my Waiting Child Yahoo Group someone posted that there are beautiful children on this agency's list, go take a look. I thought that would be fun. As I looked over the list, there she was!!! To me, she was more beautiful than other child on that list and her little face called out to me "Mommy!" I thought, "Tons of people must have requested her file!" For curiosity I would inquire into her so I e-mailed the agency. Their representative came back and said, "Noone is reviewing her file right now, would you like to?" My heart began to beat faster. Here was a precious 18 month old, at the time, that seemed to have a need that we could handle and noone was looking at her file???? I responded back that just last month my husband had a birthday that took him out of the special needs age range. The representative replied, I have discussed this with the staff and we think China will give you a waiver if you fit the criteria for everything else. Take a look at her file over the weekend and let me know if you would like to continue to review it on Monday. I could not believe what I was reading!! I immediately replied that I would like to see her file. In minutes, "You've Got Mail" appeared and I looked at the file and read over every word of this very precious girl. The picture in this post is the first picture I saw of our Aneyah! Who could turn that face down?? Her Chinese name is An Yu Rong and her birthdate is 8/30/2007 and she is from Jiangxi Province. Her main special needs are that she has had a malrotation of the stomach and swallowing issues. That is so bizarre because my mother in-law, who has passed away, had swallowing issues. What a coincident! Now, to tell Larry about her!

I showed Larry the pictures of this precious child and we discussed her file. We decided to have our local Pediatrician review her file and see what she had to say. Her review sounded doable so we contacted Dr. Jenista and her review sounded doable too. After talking, praying, and thinking, Larry and I decided to submit our LOI and see what China would say. So, on May 16th our LOI went to China. On June 1st, China replied with pre-approval! We could not believe our ears! We had done nothing to begin the process in case China said, "No!" Now, we can move forward. We did the homestudy, got our USCIS approval, dossier done and on October 19th (Mya's Gotcha Day) our dossier went to China. We were logged in on November 17th and received our LOA on January 13th(the very day one of my best friends left for China to get her daughter). What an awesome God we have! He has provided all along this journey. It has had bumps but his hand has taken care of each bump. Now we pray for Aneyah that she will remain healthy until we can get there. We pray the wait until TA will go quickly and we also pray that God will provide for us financially as we make this 5th journey! We have applied for several grants. Please pray with us about these requests! We have a fundraiser at www.adoptionbug.com/helpbringaneyahhome and donations can be sent to our agency at Small World Adoptions, PO Box 1109, Mount Juliet, TN, 37121. Please write An Yu Rong on the memo so that we get the credit.

We are beyond excited as are Aneyah's sister's about her coming home. We are so blessed by God as well as China. We are so grateful to have the privilege to be the parents of these precious children!