Our Journey to Kole

We started thinking about adding a son to our family in December 2004. In February we finally certain we wanted to add a son to our now family of four. We are Boyd Bringolf, the dad... Shannon Bringolf, the mom... Kali Bringolf.. the oldest daughter adopted from Hefei Anhui province as a butterball 14 .5 month old in Sept 1997, and Kaci Bringolf soon to be the middle child adopted from Dianbai, Guangdong as a long lanky 11.5 month old in Sept 2000.

We signed our contract with Lifelink in February 2005. In March we had decided that we were going to adopt special needs and we wanted a son. So when Lifelink asked what we were looking for, we knew. A boy aged 2 - 5 years old, cleft lip repaired and as developmentally on target as can be expected for his current living environment.

Well, we sat back and started the documents required for Illinois. We were just talking about maybe waiting to start until October of 2005 when we recieved a phone call on April 28th, 2005 at 9:00 pm. The message from our social worker was to " check your Email" I had just logged off my email and didn't think there was anything left. Well, we did and there it was SN Boy Referral!

I was shocked to say the least! So I open up the documents and he was 3 years old. The documents were dated Dec 2004(isn't that when we decided to start this?). I read though. Repaired cleft lip. Included was a developmental form filled out and he was right on target for a 3 year old! I was ecstatic! His name is Xi Chun Xin and he is in Kunming, Yunnan Province in foster care! (We had jsut been to a get together in Champaign where they were discussing Kunming...) No picture.... so I emailed back asking where is the picture! I saw 3rd degree cleft palate unrepaired. My first thought was, our dentist said stay away from a cleft that severe... but my heart was pulled toward him.

The next day we were in training all day. I was so excited. I talked to our agency more about him and got their takes on it. I spoke to a speech pathologist while we were there. I met many new cyber friends that have become a pillar of strength for me. When we returned home, the picture was there! OH MY GOODNESS he was beautiful! I couldn't take my eyes off of him!

On May 27th we sent our Letter of Intent. We tried to have it done by May 5. We started our dossier! On June 21st we saw an envelope from UPS on our porch and wondered what it was.... It was our Pre-approval for Kole Xi Chun Xin! We were so happy. We started working harder to get our dossier done. One delay after another and our dossier finally went to China on Nov. 7, 2005. We recieved our logged in date of Nov 22, 2005. We entered the Travel approval waiting room.

Now Feb 23, 2006 when all hope was fading and we were on day 93 of our 2 - 3 month wait, we received the call from our agency that we had travel approval! So now as I sit here I think, wow we could be in China in the next week or two. Let's hope I can keep up on this blog!