We welcome our family and friends! We hope you enjoy your visit as we get closer to bringing our daughter home!

Introducing Yang Xiaochun

Date of Birth: March 15, 2007

About us:
We are Gary and Lisa, the proud parents of this little girl. Our journey began three years ago when we decided to adopt from China. We had put off having children until we felt that we were in a position to provide a good home. Lisa's sister had already started her adoption process in China, and shared her experiences with us. We were excited by this, and felt that this was the way to begin.

After six months of beginning to assemble a dossier for China, we became discouraged by the wait times we were hearing about to bring home our little girl. At this time we decided that adopting from Mongolia may be a better option. Once again, we assembled the documents that were necessary for our new dossier. After much time and expense, our agency sent our completed dossier to Mongolia. Many months passed without much information. We were practically on a first-name basis with our agency with all of the phone calls and e-mails we sent checking on the status of our adoption. Then, one night we were told that our agency would no longer be handling adoptions in Mongolia.

It was hard to describe how we felt at the time--stunned, depressed, not knowing what to do next. We were really beginning to feel like this was not meant to be. All of the time and money spent seemed to be useless.

Three months later we realized that we still wanted to have a little girl. We really had our hearts set on adopting a toddler. Domestic adoption was considered, and we investigated this with our social worker. We came to the realization that we could adopt an infant, but there would be many unknowns.

After considering this for a time, we decided that we wanted to adopt a young girl with minor special needs from China. We were told that the wait times for these children are much shorter. After all of this time we had come full circle! We were very excited that our little girl and my sister's girl would share a special bond. Deciding on the needs that we were willing to accept for our family was not easy. After much deliberation and investigation, we informed our agency that a child with bilateral or unilateral cleft lip and palate would be a good fit for our family.

About her:

We have decided to name her Kathryn Xiaochun. She will be named after Lisa's dad's mother. We will keep her first and middle name to preserve her Chinese heritage. Xiao means young and Chun means springtime. Young springtime sounds beautiful to us! She was born in Fuyang, Anhui Province. Kathryn was fortunate to have had corrective surgery for cleft lip and palate through Love Without Boundaries Foundation in China. She has received loving care with a foster family for much of her life. We are so happy that she is so loved!!

Referral Date: 6/3/09

Letter of Intent (LOI): 6/4/09

Dossier to China (DTC): 6/12/09

Log-in Date (LID): 6/22/09

Letter of Acceptance (LOA): 8/6/09

Next step: Travel Approval!!!