Meet Leo!

So our paperwork was approved and we were logged into the system to be eligible for a match by May.  Between the months of March and May, we were referred a few children who seemed very sweet, but whom we felt were not our child.  Each time it was hard to say no, looking at those sweet little faces and knowing those children needed homes.  But each time, God was telling us to keep waiting.  The shared list at the end of May did not have our child on it as we'd been hoping, and as much as I knew the right one just hadn't come along yet, it was so dishearting to think we were going to have to keep waiting for the next list to be released in June.  I am not exactly patient, so the idea of having to wait another month for a match that may or may not come just seemed excruciating!

One week after the disappointing shared list not yielding a match for us, we were getting into bed when the phone rang.  It was 9:30 p.m., so we were a little surprised when we saw that the caller id was not from a number we recognized.  Caolon went ahead and answered anyway and it turns out, the call was about our son!  China had released a surprise shared list and there was a little guy on there that our agency thought we might want to see.  They read us the description and he sounded perfect, so we asked them to send us his file.  We were giddy when the email came through and we opened the first image to see this picture:

 

One look and I knew he was our boy.  We read through his information to find that he was born with a small hole in his heart, that has since closed on its own, and that he was a bit developmentally delayed (most likely due to being raised in the orphanage).  Both of these needs were things we felt comfortable with and able to support him in.  We found out that he was 16 months old at the time and that the agency described him as "a lovely boy who is adored by all."  He was perfect! 

 

We spent the next couple of days having our doctor review his file, writing our letter of intent to let China know we wanted to be his parents, and pray, pray, praying.  Everything checked out with the doc, so we submitted our letter.  A few weeks later (when we were in Hawaii on a magical vacation with my Colorado family), we got the email indicating that we had been pre-approved as this sweet little guy's parents.

 

We have decided to name him Livingston, after Caolon's grandpa, Dayle Livingston Butner.  His middle name will be his Chinese name, Shengshi.  So here is our sweet little Livingston Shengshi McNamee.  (Leo, for short!)